When you get online to work or connect with friends on social media, you want lightning-fast speed. Unfortunately, this may not happen with your internet. While it can be frustrating, having slow internet means there is a problem somewhere. If you’re pulling out your hair and gnashing your teeth due to your slow internet and wondering why this keeps happening, here are some common reasons that may shed light on your situation.
Everybody Else Is Also Online
If you go online at certain times of the day and notice your internet is always slow, it may be due to everyone else being online at the same time as yourself. This can happen during afternoons when most people are at the office, or in the early evenings when people get home and want to get on social media or other sites. Fortunately, slowdowns due to high network traffic are temporary, so you may have to be a bit patient.
You’ve Got an Old Router
Should you have a router that is more than five years old, chances are it is considered ancient by today’s standards and needs to be replaced. With each new generation of laptops, cellphones, and other related gadgets, new and faster technology can make equipment obsolete quicker than you realize. To determine if this is your problem, use an ethernet cable to plug your computer directly into your modem. If you do this and discover your internet speed improves, you need a new router. Internet providers offers router upgrades like Spectrum and Dish Network Internet and other internet companies to have a better internet experience.
Your Computer has a Virus
Sadly, your computer cannot just cough and sniffle to let you know it has a virus. Instead, it starts to slow down more and more as the virus takes up more of your computer’s resources. Actually, the virus can be a good thing in that it will show the problem is not with your internet speed itself. However, it’s vital you run antivirus and malware protection software on your computer to discover the problem and get rid of it before it does more damage.
You Need a Better Internet Plan
If you have multiple people in your household or perhaps just bought the most basic internet plan you could early on, the time may have come for you to get a faster internet plan, especially if you are experiencing slow internet on a regular basis. Thus, if you’ve got more than one person using the internet signal at any given time, or watch videos, play games, listen to music, or use video conferencing for work purposes in addition to doing the standard web browsing and checking your email, upgrade to a faster internet plan with your internet service provider.
Other Devices are Interfering
When you go online, you never anticipate that the other electronics in your home could in fact be the reason you are so frustrated with slow internet service. However, that may be exactly what is happening. Whether it’s clock radios and baby monitors to your high-tech smart television or other devices that emit a radio frequency, chances are your home’s airwaves are encountering a high-tech traffic jam. To test this theory, you’ll need to either remove the items or turn them off one by one until you find out which if any are causing your problem.
You Use a VPN
Finally, your slow internet time could be caused by your use of a Virtual Private Network, known as a VPN. Unlike an ISP network, the VPN reroutes your connection through its own server network, encrypting your data before sending you to your final online destination. Should you wish to continue using a VPN, you’ll need to use one that has a larger server network to see your online speed increase.
Though it may take a little detective work on your part to discover what’s making your internet so slow, discovering the problem will help you solve the issue and get your internet back to its original blazing speed.
