Stop Blaming Your Router! Real Reasons For Slow Internet And Simple Fixes

Do you ever wonder, despite paying your internet bill on time, you still feel a lot of lag? After returning home from a hectic workday, glaring at your router could be your new normal. Every night between 7 and 10 PM, your streaming may suffer, and video calls may pixelate. You must be sure that your router is the problem or that your Wi-Fi services are slow. But there are different issues behind your slow internet connection. Restarting your router and placing it in different corners of your house, time and again, will not solve your problems. In this article, I will explain why your router is not the culprit behind your slow internet. Peak Internet HoursYou will agree that you are not the only one binge watching webseries and streaming content

on OTTs after you reach home between 7 PM and 11 PM. People reach home, settle down, and reach for the internet. These are the crucial time where you would want to scroll Instagram reels and play games online. All of these activities are taking place at the same time, pulling from the same shared bandwidth that serves your street, block and the city. Hence, the issue might not lie with your router, but with the peering capacity. Congestion can affect your devices, whether they are connected through Wi-Fi or Ethernet. Your Internet Connection Type Will Decide How Slow Your Internet IsInterestingly, fibre optic connections can work better for holding speed better in the evenings in the rush hours. They are dedicated lines that are not shared with your neighbours. This means that the late-night streaming, gaming, or scrolling will not easily drag your internet speed down. However, the cable internet will eventually rely on shared infrastructure. Your connection will be affected if you are using the split cable internet. The more households in your area, the lower the speed you might get in the peak hours. Notably, the satellite internet will make it more difficult. It heavily depends on a limited share of satellite bandwidth, which has to provide a network in a larger chunk of geographic areas. This is the primary reason why satellite internet providers like Starlink rolled out a data soft cap to manage their network loads. Apart from the rush hours, there is another layer that may sit on top of natural congestion. Some ISPs could apply selective throttling during peak hours to stop their networks from being overwhelmed. So if your web series begins to buffer while browsing works normally, it is likely that your provider is throttling certain types of traffic rather than your selected connection. How To Deal With Slow Internet During Peak HoursYou need not change your service provider to tackle slow internet services. One of the easiest hacks to avoid peak-hour rush is to reschedule heavy-duty tasks. Do not run heavy tasks in the evening. Large chunks of downloads, cloud backups and system updates can be easily scheduled for the night, saving bandwidth for your evening tasks. Activities like gaming, video calling and livestreaming need real-time performance. A wired Ethernet connection can easily beat Wi-Fi every day. If possible, you can switch to Ethernet and see for yourself how it can cut down latency.

Configure Your Quality of ServiceThis will help you to prioritise critical traffic over less urgent data to reduce congestion. To do so, you can follow these steps:Log In: Open your browser, enter your router’s IP address and enter your admin username/password. Locate QoS: Move to the Advanced tab or Traffic Management to spot the QoS settings.Enable QoS: Check the box to Enable QoS Engine. Fix The Bandwidth Limits: Enter your internet service provider (ISP) uplink (upload) and downlink (download) speeds. Prioritise Devices And Apps: Select the apps or games and assign them to high priority. Similarly, choose your preferred devices and set them to high priority. Save Your Settings: Finally, save these settings and reboot your router to apply the changes. These tricks will definitely help you to boost your internet speed and stream content more efficiently.