Is your internet too slow? Nicole Kobie invites us into her home to reveal the best tests to find out where the problem lies
It’s an all too common problem: your broadband just isn’t as fast as you think it should be. Perhaps your Internet Service Provider (ISP) promised you 20Mbps, but you are barely managing half of that? Or maybe your speed lluctuates throughout the day, and stutters if you move to a different room.
Thankfully, there are several excellent tests and apps that will tell you what speeds you’re getting, and why these might be slower than you’d hoped. These are even worth trying even if you’re happy with your broadband speed and Wi-Fi - you never know when you might need this kind of information.
Run a broadband speed test
Before you do anything else, find out how fast your connection really is via a broadband lest. It’s best to first do this using a cable connected directly to your router, rather than by Wi-Fi.
Numerous online services claim to test your speed, but their accuracy varies. One site whose results we trust is Speedtest.net (www.speedtest.net), which is run by the Seattle-based company Ookla. In its tests it automatically chooses its nearest server to you. Because this is likely to be a similar distance to your ISF’s server, it should provide the most accurate result. To double-check the result choose a different server (one that is further away) by clicking the ‘New Server’ button.
Ookla runs the same speed tests offered by many other sites, including USwitch (www.snipca.com/19372), so look out tor the Ookla logo before running multiple tests to make sure you’re not wasting time comparing results using the same tool.
Another test you should try comes from Thinkbroadband (www.thinкbroadband.com/speedtest.html), a broadband news and information site. Unlike Speedtest.net it also shows your average speed over time, and your ‘burst’ speed, which is the very fastest you could have received at that particular time.
Testing Speedtest.com and Thinkbroadband back at my flat on a weekday afternoon produced similar results of around 14.5Mbps. My ISP claims I should be hitting 17Mbps, but I’ve never achieved this despite living near an exchange in central London, where speeds are typically very good.
Speeds will change throughout the day, and in the evening mine often falls to around 11 Mbps as more people log on to use the network after returning home from work.
Check what's blocking your Wi-Fi
Your ISP may not be responsible for slow speeds; the blame could lie with your Wi-Fi. Perhaps you’re getting interference from your neighbour’s router, or the walls in your house are blocking the signal. If your desktop PC reaches the speed you expect, but your laptop, phone or tablet fall short, it’s a safe bet your Wi-Fi is at fault. If you can, check this using Android apps, which arc better than their basic iOS equivalents because Apple doesn’t allow these to access data stored on iPhones and iPads.
My own flat is the ground floor of an old two-up, two-down cottage that’s been doubled in size with an extension at the back. As cosy as it is, it means that a one-time exterior wall runs through the middle of my flat, blocking my signal. I certainly don’t need a Wi-Fi-checking app to confirm the problem, because the connection stops dead as I step from the hallway into the kitchen. I fixed this some months ago with a Wi-Fi extender, meaning I can now happily stream and browse while sitting at the kitchen table.
I thought it would be interesting to see what the Wi-Fi-checking apps would make of my setup. Ofcom’s new Wi-Fi Checker for Android (free from www.snipca.com/19368) is easy to use, but we didn’t find it particularly helpful. It quickly reveals whether your Wi-Fi is hampering your internet connection, but if there is a problem it says that it doesn't have enough of a signal to give you the full details. It was sensitive enough to pick up interference from an operating microwave (scrambled eggs on toast, in case you’re interested), but couldn’t display the full report identifying the problem.
There are better options, one of which is Ookla’s free Speedtest.net app for Android (www.snipca.com/19374). Usefully, it shows how your speeds vary during the day. Ours ranged from 6.1Mbps to 14.48Mbps, depending on where we stood, and whether the electric heater - which tends to chew up the signal - was switched on or off. Yes, I’m willing to risk chillblains to bring you these results.
OpenSignal for Android (free from www.snipca.com/19369) tests download and upload speeds as well as mobile broadband connections, and gives your Wi-Fi a rating out of five for different tasks. This helps you find out whether you need to switch to a fixed connection when you stream video or use Skype. However, it gave us different speeds for tests taken just minutes apart, which undermined our faith in it somewhat.
Are your neighbours to blame?
You should test your Wi-Fi in different rooms, and with electrical appliances turned on and off, to see if it fluctuates. If it doesn’t alter much, your problem may be caused instead by interference from your neighbours’ signals.
One way to overcome this is to use a dual-band router, which offers you 2.4GHz or 5GHz on the Wi-Fi spectrum. If everyone else in your street is on 2.4GHz, you can avoid interference by switching to 5GHz - and vice versa. You can also avoid interference by switching to a different channel on that spectrum range. Some routers now do this automatically.
Use the free Android app Wi-Fi Analyzer (www.snipca.com/19380) to check whether your neighbours are using the same spectrum or channel. On my street, it revealed a dozen other wireless connections using 2.4GHz, but only one on 5GHz. It also show's which channel each connection is using, so if you’re stuck w'ith a single-band router, you can still lind a less busy spot for your own Wi-Fi.
You can use a heatmap tool to find out where the signal is strongest in your home. We recommend Fkahau’s Heatmapper (free from www.snipca.com/19387), which lets you build a heatmap on your laptop as you w'alk from room to room. Click the grid every step or two you take to map out the shape of your home, and then hover over your router to see the coverage map - green is where your signal is strongest, red is w'eakest.
PING! HOW A BROADBAND SPEED TEST WORKS
Most speed tests generally work the same way: they download a small file, then use it to overload your network connection to see how fast the data travels.
Ookla's Speedtest.net performs three tests. The most important, which calculates broadband speed, is a 'ping' test (also called a latency test), which sends a piece of data to the server. It measures in milliseconds the time it takes to get a response.
The other two tests assess your download and upload speeds. For the former, Speedtest.net connects to the server and requests a small amount of data, timing how long it takes to arrive, before requesting more data "chunks" to fill the maximum amount allowed by the connection. The upload tests work in reverse, with Speedtest.net sending data from your PC to the server.