Why is my internet slow

Ever wondered why your internet is so slow…

It seems every where I go the first question is why would our internet and browsing be slow?

Well lets start at the beginning. First of all the in Australia the geographic location of where your building is will affect the type of service you will have. You may be in a suburb not far form the major city but this will not guarantee you of a high speed internet connection. A of the cities have NBN connections now so they are able to take advantage of this technology. Those who are outside the major boundaries for NBN will still be relying on ADSL, ADSL2, ADSL2+, Wireless 3/4G or satellite for those who are really remote.

At the end of the day it comes down to the following factors:

1. Distance from the exchange – This determines the type of service.
2. What type of cable to the building. (Copper, Fibre to the curb, Fibre to the premises, Bonded connections, Wireless Satellite)
3. What plan your on
4. What type of router / modem
5. How many devices are connecting to the internet
6. What security / virus software am I using

Lets break it down.

• ADSL Max range without booster 5.5 klm – max speed 1500 – 8000 kbps (1.5mbps – 8mbps)
• ADSL+ Max Range without booster 2 klm – max speed Finishes at 12000 kbps (12 mbps)
• ADSL2+ Max Range without booster 2 klm – max speed Finishes at 24000 kbps (24mbps)
• Bonded connections basically multiple internet lines paired together to create high speed connections.
• Wireless depends on Line of site distance from Telstra or service provider tower and what type of device installed. E.g. cheap $200 wireless device no external antennas = intermittent slow service as apposed to a $900 – $1500 wireless device with directional external antennas. Speeds can be from 2mbps all the way up to 100 + mbps.
• Satellite depends on what offering you are. Once installed stable but you will have latency issues just because of the technology.

So what does this all mean. It says that if you live further than 2 klm away from the nearest exchange with our current technology offered you will get very average speed. Also the types of service offering to consumers is a shared service so as more users arrive home form work and they connect and play games or surf the internet your service will degrade.

Now think about this we never had television connected to the internet or as many mobile phones / iPads with multiple apps all phoning home. These devices streaming media now makes your internet browsing very ordinary and slow causing traffic congestion on the main network and overloading of the already overloaded exchange running on old technology. Some good advice is to turn off data for any unnecessary Apps and clean the unused ones of the devices. It may be as simple as playing the radio on your smartphone which is streaming live data on the internet. Oh that’s right radio was never played on a phone either (haha).

So we all want this and we all complain when it does not work but the simple fact of the matter is the hose is not big enough to get all these services through. In IT terms we call it the Pipe when the pipe is overloaded the packets of data get dropped because the Television is now streaming at 7mbps, the combined 4 smart phones are streaming 6mbps and I only have ADSL2+ which runs at maximum 24mb download, but because of my distance and the old cables from the exchange it freezes up because the numbers don’t work.

We take the loss from the exchange and my connection runs at 13.5 mbps. Add the streaming from the phones 6mbps add TV 7mbps total 13mbps leaves only 0.5m bps for the other 2 laptops to do homework. When they browse the pipe is full no more data in or out momentarily drops off locks up.

So how do we solve our hunger for the internet?

There are several options and ways to overcome the problems and they do require a technician and someone to analyse the connection and advise how best to resolve it.

For businesses there are dedicated options that are not shared services. This type of service guarantees business continuity and bandwidth.  But also the right type of Modem / Router can make a huge difference as basic routers have limited on-board processing capabilities.

If you’re business is frustrated with its internet speed let us know and we would be more than happy to assist.

Hope this helps