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Home | FAQs | Why is my Internet slow?

Why is my Internet Slow?

There are many things that can affect the speed of your connection to the rest of the world:

The connection to your property

Over the years the connections available have improved from Dial-Up, through ADSL, FTTC, 3G and 4G to a Fibre connection.
Some people have a choice for their connection to the Internet and to see who you could use enter your postcode here https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/availability. For most this will be provided by OpenReach, who run what was BT's network, and the latest information on what they can offer you is here https://www.openreach.com/#checkavailability with the expected maximum speed.

You can check your actual speed at https://www.speedtest.net or at https://fast.com and if what is reports is well below what OpenReach say it could be, contact your provider and ask "Why?" Can they upgrade you to the faster service? You could also move to someone who will provide a better service.

If you have the best service available, and you aren't getting the best speeds or the line is laggy / you experience buffering or break up on VoIP phone calls, this could be due to delays on your providers' network. Think Broadband run a monitoring service and you can activate it for your line here https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality, but you do need a static IP address or a dynamic DNS service if you don't have a static IP address while the monitoring is in operation.

Once you have got the best speed you can and your connection is reliable you need to look closer to home

The connection within your building

Are you connecting via a cable or via Wi-Fi? Cable is the most reliable, if you can turn off Wi-Fi when connected via a cable to make sure you are using the better of the two connections.
If you are using powerline or similar extenders then they will help but can be unreliable and they are not as good as running a cable back to your router / firewall.
If you are connecting via Wi-Fi how strong is the signal?
Are you connecting to a Wi-Fi 6 signal if available rather than the 5Ghz one? The 5Ghz signal is still way faster than the basic 2.4Ghz signal though
If there are lots of other Wi-Fi networks covering your building, are you on the right one and is it frequency optimised to avoid the others?

Who else and how are they connecting to your network?

If there are people playing on X-Boxes / PlayStations streaming films in HD that will use up lots of your bandwidth and leave you little for your work needs.
If you are connecting via Wi-Fi who else is sharing the capacity of that access point? The typical 300Mbs it claims normal only connects at 150Mbs or 72Mbs as you move away from the access ppint and if that is split among 10 or 15 other devices it is easily only 5Mbs each, when your building is provided with an 80Mbs connection, you can see the poor speed is under your control.

What can be done to improve slow speeds

There apps available that show you what devices are connected to your network and what WiFi channels are in use so you can optimise your WiFi network

Wifi Analyzer Fing shows what is connected to your network
Wifi Analyzer
(Click image to enlarge)
Fing shows what is connected to your network
(Click to image to enlarge)

If you are experiencing slow Internet or slow wifi please call us on 01242 621641 or email support@cti-uk.com, we can help with all or any part of providing you with full coverage, high speed Wi-Fi.



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