Improve your home internet speed

Find the Bottleneck

Your internet speed (and experience) is affected by multiple things.

1. The speed of the internet connected to your router.
2. The speed your Wi-Fi your wireless router can handle.
3. The speed of your Wi-Fi adapter in your laptop, tablet or phone.
4. The distance of the device from your wireless router.
5. How many people are using it at the same time and what they are using it for.

Most of the time it’s important to figure out if your Wi-Fi is not allowing you to get your full internet speed or if you just need to upgrade your internet connection.

The slowest part of the chain of communication will slow down everything else. For example:
If you have a 80mb/s internet connection but your Wi-Fi can only transmit at 20mb/s you’ll be limited by the slower speed.

You can test your speed by using a speed test like the one provided here. Just remember if anyone else is downloading anything or using Netflix this will affect your result accuracy. Newer devices might also perform better if support newer versions of Wi-Fi.

If you get noticeably better speeds when close to the router compared to other locations in your house you should look to improve your Wi-FI. If speeds are consistent but still feel slow, you should consider upgrading your internet connection.

My Wi-Fi speed is not consistent,
how can I improve speed?

1. Move your wireless router
   A more central location in your home or to a spot closest to where it’s needed most. Distance between the wireless router and your device does affects speed.
2. Position your wireless router correctly
   The less objects between your laptop or phone and your router, the faster the connection. If your router is tucked away or surrounded by objects, try exposing it more. Wi-Fi travels best through air and poorly through metal. Also keep it away from other devices that might interfere (such as wireless landline phones), microwaves and washing machines.
3. Upgrade your router
   New wireless technology has resulted in much better performance and stability.
4. Upgrade your device
   If the speeds you get are much slower on some devices and others, it could be the device needs an upgrade to support faster speeds.

Wi-Fi is speed is consistent,
how can I improve speed?

If it doesn’t look like your Wi-Fi is causing the bottleneck, you need to look at upgrading your internet connection. Contact your Internet Service Provider and ask what options are available and what speeds you can expect.