Why Is Our Internet Slow?

Internet access is one of the most important components of modern day living. Having a bad or unreliable internet connection in the office is frustrating. Not only does it affect the productivity of your business, it can also bring out the worst in people. There are fortunately a number of ways we can help improve your slow internet speed.

Slow Internet Speed Package

First off, your package through your Internet Service Provider or (ISP) may be slower than you realize. If your ISP provides a speed of 100Mbps, your top speed will only ever be 100Mbps. With that being said, if your internet provider package is the bottleneck, nothing will have much of an impact. We are partners with many internet providers, and can help you save money, while getting faster speeds.

Network and Equipment Constraints

Issues with the networking or wiring within your office may cause bandwidth constraints. Difficulties with bandwidth may cause slow network or slow internet access.

The equipment you use for your network connection, such as your router or firewall, needs to be capable of keeping up with your internet speeds. Often times, these devices are scanning traffic for malicious software and have processing limitations.

We can help you pick the right network switches, firewalls or security devices that won’t slow down your high speed connection.

Slow or Congested Wireless Network

Wireless is convenient, but not always reliable. Regardless of advertised speeds, wireless usually isn’t as fast as a hardwired connection for a few reasons.

Wireless is susceptible to various types of interference. There are a number of different wireless frequencies as well as technologies, some are better and more reliable than others.

Most wireless technologies in use today may advertise certain speeds, but that is the total speed of the entire wireless network and actual speeds quickly plummets as you add wireless devices that may attempt to talk over one another. The higher the number of wireless devices on a network, the more congestion that may slow you down. Even if wireless devices aren’t actively doing anything, there is a lot of background chatter as you add more devices to a network.

If your employees are adding their smartphones to your wireless network, or guests or clients are adding their devices, you never know what data may be transferring or downloading that you may be competing with.

While wireless internet can be reliable, clients often have high and unrealistic expectations about it. Multitasking with various internet applications, while possible, will put a strain on your wireless network’s performance. You will likely find dead zones, or areas where the connection is poor, in the building as you move around. While the technology is improving in this respect, it cannot provide the same reliability as a hardwired ethernet connection.

Additionally, security in your wireless network is essential to keeping your wireless performing well. If all your neighbors are on your wireless, or have your guest wireless password, they could be bogging down your network.

Slow DNS Server

DNS servers are responsible for resolving people friendly names, such as www.oac.tech, and converting them to an IP address to find other systems on the internet.

Some DNS servers are slow, while others are fast. We can help you update your DNS servers if slow DNS lookups are causing performance issues.

If you have a lot of devices on a network, sometimes it makes more sense to have a local DNS server that can resolve and cache DNS lookups to speed things up within your company.

Compromised Computer or Compromised Server

A computer or server that has been infected with malware or other viruses may see a decrease in its performance, especially on the internet.

Often times when a computer or server is compromised, “hackers” or malicious actors may be running nefarious things in the background. They could be using a compromised system to use as a proxy to hide their traces when attacking other systems, sending spam, or running a botnet.

If your computer is running slowly, consider installing a strong antivirus software such as SentinelOne Complete, or having an IT professional run some tests.

Diagnose with an IT Technician

The best way to improve your slow internet speed is to perform diagnostic tests to determine the main cause of the issue. Our expert technicians here at OAC can help you root out the problem, and help get you back to fast internet in no time! We also work with a number of internet partners, so we can get fast internet to your business.

Start a conversation with one of our IT professionals today!