How can I make my Internet connection faster?

One of the most frequently asked questions of any computer support technician is how to make a home Internet connection faster. It’s also a difficult problem to troubleshoot, because there are many factors that change Internet speed in your home. Let’s take a look at those factors and see if there are some that you are afflicted with.

First, the quality of service provided by your Internet Service Provider (ISP). Many ISPs provide varying levels of service. Some common ISPs in the state of Maine are Time Warner, GWI, Verizon, and Fairpoint, among others. There are advantages and disadvantages to every ISP, but the main determinant of service is how much you pay. For example, you can purchase a 10-megabit-per-second (MBPS) connection from Time Warner for somewhere in the neighborhood of $30 a month. The speeds and packages offered by your ISP can vary depending where you live. So if you have a want for faster Internet in your home, first contact your ISP to see your current plan and how much it would increase your monthly rate to increase that maximum speed.

The next factor that you can control is the quality of your wireless technology. As with much else in technology, there is a drastic difference in quality of wireless routers. The major factor in quality is the rate of transmission they support. Many older or cheaper routers may only support 2.4GHz, which is significantly slower than the more modern 5.0GHz band. Another factor that can vary between routers is the number of antennas. Some cheaper routers might have 2 antennas, which can lead to traffic hitting walls and significantly reducing speed. Others may have 8 or more, which allows for more coverage of your home and can increase wireless speeds across your home. Therefore, another contributing factor to slow wireless speeds might be a wall preventing wireless traffic from getting through as fast, or the lack of an antenna directed at the area of your house.

Finally, the biggest and most common factor is too much network density. In short, if there are too many wireless connections to your router, the amount of bandwidth is shared across all of the devices. Think of it like this: the total amount of Internet you can have is the width of a highway. Each device is a car, and all of these cars are traveling to the same place. If there are fewer cars on the road, everyone can go the speed limit and not be slowed down. But if there are many cars on the road, then everyone must slow down to accommodate the traffic. So the first thing to do when troubleshooting a slow wireless Internet connection is to unplug your wireless router for 30 seconds. This will end all active connections, allow the router to reset its bandwidth, and will usually fix the problem.

 

As always, you can email BDNTech@jortbru.com, submit to the form at jortbru.com/contact, or tweet at me @JordanBruceBDN with your technology questions. I look forward to connecting with all of my readers, and answering all of your tech questions!

Jordan Bruce

About Jordan Bruce

My name is Jordan Bruce, and I'm a rising junior at Falmouth High School. In the past 6 months, I've received qualifications for troubleshooting and servicing Mac computers, iOS devices, and all Windows computers.