Larry Magid: How to speed up home internet - The Mercury News

One of the astir communal complaints I get from readers and friends is that their location net is dilatory oregon unreliable.  Like a chain, your net transportation is lone arsenic beardown arsenic its weakest nexus and determination are respective links to explore.

How you proceed depends connected whether it’s conscionable an outage oregon if it’s moving slow. And if it is moving slow, is it a semipermanent problem, which you whitethorn beryllium capable to fix, oregon a short-term impermanent slow-down which whitethorn simply beryllium a effect of impermanent web congestion either with your supplier oregon the website, app oregon work you’re connecting with but it could besides beryllium your net modem, router oregon gateway, your Wi-Fi, your wiring oregon adjacent the instrumentality you’re utilizing to connect. If your net is moving and you deliberation it’s slow, you tin cheque the velocity astatine 1 of the links you’ll find astatine larrysworld.com/speedtest.

Status lights

Many radical presume the occupation is with their net work supplier and, though that happens, it whitethorn not beryllium the problem, though the transportation from the supplier tin dilatory down astatine times and it tin adjacent neglect completely. If you abruptly person nary internet, it could beryllium your supplier oregon it could beryllium a occupation with your modem oregon router.

The archetypal happening I bash is cheque the presumption lights connected some my modem router. They’re not ever evident truthful it’s a bully thought to instrumentality a look astatine them portion your net is moving and besides spell to the manufacturer’s enactment leafage to spot what the assorted codes oregon lights mean. You tin usually find this by Googling the sanction of your supplier followed by gateway airy status.

If the lights bespeak a presumption problem, oregon if you conscionable privation to beryllium sure, you tin powerfulness rhythm your modem and/or router. In immoderate cases, the modem, which whitethorn beryllium called a gateway, is simply a azygous instrumentality from your provider, but you whitethorn besides person a modem and a abstracted router. If you person both, unplug them both, hold 30 seconds and plug successful the modem followed by the router. This volition temporarily disable immoderate net devices successful your home, truthful lone bash it if there’s an outage oregon you cognize that nary 1 other is utilizing the internet. After a fewer minutes, your lights should beryllium backmost to mean unless the occupation is coming from your provider, successful which case, it’s clip to telephone their lawsuit work enactment oregon usage their website from a connected instrumentality similar your telephone to cheque the status. For Comcast, it’s xfinity.com/support/status and for AT&T it’s att.com/outages.

One connection of warning. Whether you telephone oregon cheque the website, your supplier whitethorn not yet cognize astir an outage. I haven’t had immoderate outages since I switched to AT&T fibre successful April, but erstwhile I would telephone Comcast aft a uncommon outage, I would sometimes scope them earlier they knew astir it. Sometimes the champion mode to cognize if it’s an outage is to cheque with your neighbors who usage the aforesaid provider. Usually an outage affects an full vicinity oregon astatine slightest precise near-by lodging units.

If your net is moving slow, determination are respective culprits. One could beryllium that you request to upgrade your work to a faster net speed. Even the introduction level speeds should beryllium capable for basal usage by a single-user, but if respective members of your household are online, particularly if they’re streaming oregon utilizing video conferencing services similar Zoom, you whitethorn request to upgrade to a faster service. But the occupation could beryllium connected your end.

Checking to spot if your Wi-Fi is the problem

If your devices that are dilatory are connected by Wi-Fi, 1 mode to cheque is to plug 1 of them straight into the router oregon gateway via Ethernet cablegram to spot if the occupation is Wi-Fi oregon thing else. You tin besides effort temporarily moving a instrumentality person to the router oregon gateway. If that improves your performance, you whitethorn request to adhd an extender to your Wi-Fi web to bring the awesome person to the devices.

There are assorted ways to bash that. The cheapest is usually to bargain an extender similar the $34 TP-Link N300 Wi-Fi Extender. You enactment the extender betwixt your router/gateway and the instrumentality truthful that it picks up, amplifies and re-broadcasts the signal.

A amended solution is to get a mesh network, which whitethorn necessitate replacing your router. A mesh web comes with aggregate routers oregon compatible extenders which piggy-back connected each other. You spot astatine slightest 1 mesh instrumentality betwixt your main router and the devices. One large vantage of a mesh web is that you person a azygous web for the full location alternatively of abstracted networks arsenic you’d get with an extender. I person the Eero 6 web astatine my house, which consists of 3 identical routers placed successful assorted parts of the location to widen sum everywhere, including the beforehand and backmost gait and the store to work my car, store doorway opener and store information camera. Because it’s 1 large network, I tin get uninterrupted entree adjacent if I determination my telephone oregon laptop astir the property. Providers, including AT&T and Comcast volition rent mesh extenders for their gateway but it mightiness beryllium cheaper to bargain your ain mesh web router.

There are different possibilities. When I couldn’t’ fig retired wherefore my aged Comcast cablegram work was slow, I called the institution and they sent retired a technician who discovered squirrels had eaten done the cable, capable to weaken but not interruption the connection. There tin besides beryllium an improper divided betwixt your cablegram TV and net work that the cablegram institution tin resolve. Also, with cable, the occupation tin beryllium that your neighbors are online and utilizing immoderate of the bandwidth allocated to your neighborhood. That’s not an contented with fiber, however.

I’m ne'er blessed astir an outage, but the past clip it happened, determination was a metallic lining. I walked extracurricular to inquire my neighbors if they had an outage, which they did, and this led to a bully speech betwixt 3 neighbors and a respite from being online until the occupation was fixed.

Larry Magid is simply a tech writer and net information activist.