Internet speed slow: upgrade router or change provider?

try changing the Internet you use. i have a very fast Internet connection, but i used Internet explorer. wrong choice… one of my friends moved me onto opera, and i love it! it runs at least twice as fast as Internet and has a feature, called turbo. this feature will change settings so that the Internet will run much faster on slow connections but will slow down fast connections. i personally leave it on auto. if you are using a mac, however, you shold be using safari. thats all i can help with. try out opera and see if there are any changes

Ouch. It sounds like you’re simply putting a lot of bandwidth on your cable, especially with gaming and streaming video. Your router may be old, but I’d think you need a new provider, or a new plan (some providers have scaled plans, with more bandwidth for more $$$). This can be costly, though, so if you’re using IE I’d highly suggest trying opera or firefox first, as IRemy_y said. If that fixes it, cool, but otherwise look into a plan with higher bandwidth.

I’d try calling your service provider’s tech support. They might have info concerning rates of speed in certain high-traffic areas or about the possibility of upgrading your hardware.

what providers would you recommend? where can i search for various providers in my area. we dont want DSL because of its slower speeds. tech support is horrible and receive no help. at one point we were losing any internet connectivity approximately once a week.

If your connection is poor it’s most likely your router I would prefer to use a Linksys over netgear anyday….

stop torrenting all the time :)

Thy the speed tests and diagnostic tools at http://www.dslreports.com/tools (nothing weird to download and install on your computer, it’s all java based)

Don’t let the domain name fool you, they’re not just about dsl. You should find out what’s wrong with your setup very quickly.

If the tests don’t detect any problem with your line you can compare your results with real-world measurements recorded in your area. You can then see how your provider compares with others.

Don’t forget, you guys are dividing the bandwidth among yourselves. At any rate, it is unlkely to be your router – test the speed with a cabled, solo connection.

You have a lot going into your router. That bottle-neck is causing your problem. Changing providers won’t help.
@pdworkin has a good test for you. Go to DSL SPEED TEST

Linksys routers seem more expensive, and in my experience less reliable than Netgear. How are Belkin routers?

the speedtests gave me 411 kilobytes/sec download and 45 Kb/s upload. its about 5pm here, so speed doesnt seem too bad. then again we aren’t doing anything online at the moment.