These days, most of us are using wifi on almost all our gadgets — laptops, iPads, smartphones, Apple TVs, Rokus, X Boxes, Wiis, even many desktops. What’s more frustrating than clicking on a link and then having to wait for what seems like forever before the page finally appears? Or trying to watch Netflix, it keeps interrupting the movie because it has to buffer.
Add up all the different devices accessing the same router in one home and you just might find upwards of a dozen all making simultaneous demands on one source. No wonder things have gotten sluggish! Believe it or not, I still come across clients who have NEVER upgraded their original Internet speed they’ve had since the 90s — some are still trying to make these huge bandwidth demands off a lowly 0.768 Mbps DSL connection!! Compare that to the 50 Mbps available through a cable connection and I think you’ll agree there’s just a slight improvement…
The first thing I recommend is to determine your type of Internet connection and then find out exactly what speed that provider claims you should be getting. Many people don’t have a clue what they’re paying for Internet or what speed they ought to be getting. I’ve often found that a client can double or triple their bandwidth for LESS than they were paying for the slower speed — all by making one simple phone call to their provider. Another idea is to compare prices of different providers in your area. Sometimes making the switch to another company is a great option due to all the bundling incentives available.
Next I recommend taking a look at the router — how old is it and is it optimized for today’s security demands? Does it have the latest wifi technology or is it an original “B” router? If you’re working off old technology, your newfangled wifi devices unfortunately will only go as fast as the slower technology. Therefore, a new router can make a huge difference in performance, making the cost extremely well worth the outlay.
Start with these two recommendations and see where it leads. Afterward, there are many more tips to get your Internet speeds going much more smoothly, but we’ll save that for another post. In the meantime, feel free to contact me with other questions regarding this or any other tech topic. I’ll be sure to respond as soon as I can!