If your speed increases when you are directly next to the modem, this is a good sign, in which case your router may be the issue. As mentioned, the router allows you to extend your connectivity range. If your device is too far away from the router, this could be impacting your download speed. The location of your router can have a major impact on your download speed as well. Be mindful of where you are placing your router as some areas in your home may not have a strong connectivity signal.
If you have a large house, consider getting Wi-Fi extenders that can boost the range and increase your internet speed. Avoid putting your router in basements, bathrooms, cabinets, on the floor, or near microwaves and other home appliances. Your router should be in a central location so the connection can reach throughout the entire home. Sometimes Wi-Fi can be tricky, in which case connecting to an Ethernet cable can quickly increase your download speed. To do this, connect the Ethernet from your modem to your device.
If the cable is too long or if it is outdated, try upgrading to a higher-quality, shorter cable. Sometimes this slight change can make all the difference. Viruses on your device can cause a multitude of issues. These viruses can run in the background, using your internet and increasing your bandwidth usage, which results in slow download speed.
To prevent this, consider installing antivirus software to protect yourself from viruses, malware, and other online threats. Aside from installing virus scanners, you may also want to limit how much bandwidth is being used on your device. Bandwidth is a measurement that refers to the amount of data that can be transferred within a network.
All of the applications, downloads, and updates that happen on our network can take up our bandwidth, causing download speed to suddenly slow down. You can also manually limit how much bandwidth is being used by updating your device settings.
Cache is what stores your internet data to help website browsers and apps load faster. Sometimes your browser cache will become full and can cause download speeds to run slower. Uploading and downloading data can take a while, depending on the file's size and transfer rate.
Think of it like pouring water into a beaker. Pouring water from one beaker to another will only take a little amount of time. However, if we place a funnel on one beaker, the amount of water flow will decrease due to the narrow part of the funnel.
The flow rate of the water in this analogy is similar to the transfer rate of a file. We can compare a funnel's narrow tube part to what is called the internet's bandwidth. The larger the bandwidth is, the more data that can be transmitted at a time. Therefore, a file can be transferred much faster if the internet connection has a larger bandwidth. Bandwidth is also, in a way, an internet connection's maximum capacity, and we can express it in units of bits per second. Internet bandwidth can also represent the maximum speed an internet connection can have.
However, when moving a file from one computer to another, the maximum transfer speed will depend on the slowest bandwidth that the data has to go through - which can be anywhere in the route. To better understand this, let us consider an example. Let's say that your friend wants to send you his new MB megabytes video creation over his 10 Mbps megabits per second internet connection.
On the other hand, you will be receiving the video file over your 5 Mbps home internet connection. For this example, let us assume that the upload and download speeds for both connections can use their entire bandwidths. Since the file will also be coming through the much lower 5 Mbps connection, this will be the maximum transfer speed that we can get for this data transfer.
But, to determine the upload and download speeds of your connection, you can use any third-party speed test applications that can be accessed online through your browser. Now that we know how to determine the transfer speed for our uploads and downloads, we can now calculate a file's download time or duration.
Calculating download time is as simple as dividing the size of the file you wish to transfer by the transfer speed of the network that the transfer will go through. However, we have to be careful with the units we use, since this could be quite confusing.
Let us consider the example above for our sample computation. To calculate how long to download the MB video over a 5 Mbps internet download speed, we can use the equation below:.
But first, let us convert the units of the file size in terms of megabits, which is equivalent to 1 million bits.
To do so, we'll be using the conversion table above under the SI system. Uploading is an essential part of using the internet. We all use upload speed, but some people rely on it heavily. Most ISPs advertise only download speeds, so you might not even realize that upload speeds are a separate thing. Download speeds are also generally the faster of the two speeds, so most advertisements tend to focus on them.
Although we constantly both download and upload information online, for most of us, the information we upload is generally much smaller.
By contrast, the only information that needs to be uploaded are the search terms you look up and the information from the links and buttons you click. Most of us have had to deal with slow download speeds at one point or another, which often involves waiting for images to appear on a web page or a video stopping in the middle of playback to buffer.
There are several reasons why your internet speed might dip temporarily due to traffic or routine maintenance. Thinking of switching to a faster plan? Enter your zip code to see what providers are available in your area. Author - Peter Christiansen.
Peter Christiansen writes about satellite internet, rural connectivity, livestreaming, and parental controls for HighSpeedInternet. Peter holds a PhD in communication from the University of Utah and has been working in tech for over 15 years as a computer programmer, game developer, filmmaker, and writer. Cara Haynes has been editing and writing in the digital space for seven years, and she's edited all things internet for HighSpeedInternet.
When she's not editing, she makes tech accessible through her freelance writing for brands like Pluralsight. This means that you may not extract anywhere close to the maximum available bandwidth on your internet package if you are using Wi-Fi at distance from the router. Wi-Fi can drop out and lead to dead zones and slow speeds further away from the router.
Solution — Always use a wired ethernet connection instead if possible. They will almost always deliver better speeds and lower ping that Wi-Fi, and allow you to extract the maximum out of your internet service at any given moment.
Click on the links to view 10m and 20m ethernet cables on Amazon. For those users, a Powerline Adapter can be an excellent compromise solution to get on a wired connection. These kits consist of a pair of adapters, one of which is plugged in and connected to your router, the other of which is plugged in and connected to your device.
The two adapters than communicate through the existing electrical wiring of the house to deliver a wired internet connection to the receiving end. See our Powerline Adapters page for links to more models. Bottom line — They can be a good solution for many people using Wi-Fi at distance from the router who keep getting internet speeds that are much lower than they should be getting. If you cannot use powerline adapters and must stay on Wi-Fi, then you can use Wi-Fi repeaters or Mesh Systems to boost the signal for better speeds.
This is another thing to be mindful of — if your home network is busy, with lots of people trying to use the internet at once, then you will likely have much lower download speeds than if the network was quiet.
The total bandwidth of an internet package is shared across the entire house. So even if it has a high theoretical maximum speed or bandwidth allowance, if lots of people are using that service at the same time, then each person will get lower speeds, even if the overall available bandwidth is high. The simplest way around this is to wait until the home network is quieter before downloading large files. It is normally reserved for gamers to reduce lag or ping on busy networks, but there is nothing stopping other people using it to prioritize their devices instead.
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