What to Do When the Internet Feels Slow

What to Do When the Internet Feels Slow

What to Do When the Internet Feels Slow

Overview

Slow internet has a lot of possible causes: your device, your Wi-Fi, the office network, your ISP, or even a specific website. This guide helps you narrow it down before opening a ticket.

Before You Begin

  • Your work laptop or computer.
  • A second device, like your phone, to compare.
  • A few minutes to run a speed test and check a few things.

Steps

  1. Run a speed test. Go to fast.com or speedtest.net in your browser. Note the download speed, upload speed, and ping.
  2. Compare to your normal results. A typical office connection should give you at least 50 Mbps download on a wired connection or strong Wi-Fi.
  3. Test the same site on your phone using office Wi-Fi. If the phone is fast and your laptop is slow, the issue is your laptop.
  4. Switch from Wi-Fi to a wired connection if you have one. Plug an Ethernet cable into your laptop or dock and rerun the test.
  5. Close unused browser tabs and background apps. Video apps, large downloads, and cloud sync can eat bandwidth.
  6. Restart your laptop. This clears stale network connections.
  7. If only one website is slow, the issue is that site, not your network.
  8. Ask a coworker if they are seeing the same thing. If yes, file a ticket and mention the time, your location, and the speed test result.

Troubleshooting

  • If your phone is also slow on office Wi-Fi: the office network is the issue. See Troubleshoot Office Wi-Fi That Keeps Dropping.
  • If everyone is slow: check whether your ISP has an outage. See Check Whether Your ISP Is Having an Outage.
  • If video calls keep freezing but websites load fine: your upload speed may be low. Switch to wired and rerun the test.
  • If your laptop is the only slow device: update your Wi-Fi driver via Windows Update or restart. If that does not help, file a ticket.
  • If you are working from home: see Set Up a Home Office That Actually Works for ways to improve speed.

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Need More Help?

Submit a ticket at support.bostonmit.com or email support@bostonmit.com.

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