Our internet is slow, is it the old router?
Asked by
JLeslie (
65412
)
March 3rd, 2015
from iPhone
We have a router that is about 10 years old.
Our internet became very slow about a year ago and I think it is the internet company trying to squeeze more money out of us. I saw there is a lawsuit for a different company about just that very thing.
The service guy gave us some story about there being much more internet traffic now and the old router is slower, but a new router would help. I don’t understand why a new router will help? The router is just for my house to provide 4 wifi lines. How does that have anything to do with the speed of the internet?
Moreover, the internet traffic has not increased that much in one year. Bullshit. This is the most densely populated county in Florida. It’s already jammed with people and internet lines a year ago. Any new lines would be a minuscule percentage increase.
I thought I would ask the collective if there is any validity to my router being at fault. I get my internet through cable.
Only answer if you know the technology. No guessing please.
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19 Answers
Do you have a combo router/modem or is your modem and router separate?
Run a test at Speedtest.net . It will give you the ping time, upload and download speeds. Then compare with the advertised speeds and the service plan you have. A middle of the road plan might be 10Mb/sec download and 1 Mb/sec upload. You might have the ‘Lite’ version which is slower. 3Mb/sec down, 0.5Mb/sec upload.
Test it. Without data all you have is an opinion.
It sounds like a simplification on his part, or maybe he just doesn’t understand. He’s not completely wrong, but he definitely didn’t explain it very well.
A new wifi router would almost certainly speed things up if yours is 10 years old, they’re just a lot better now, for a number of reasons. The biggest being underlying standards have been updated, so any newer wifi devices you’re using would be able to connect using a different standard most likely. Also they have nifty things like multiple antennas for beam shaping and all those goodies. That’s not really what you’re asking though.
Most likely your internet access with the same router is slower because of interference. Most will allow you to change the channel, if someone near you is using the same channel, then that could definitely slow your connection down. New routers do a better job, or switch automatically.
Testing your real connection speed requires a wired connection, if you plug in and it’s considerably faster, then a new router would probably help. If you plug in directly to the modem, and it’s slow, then that’s the provider’s issue.
Do a little testing and you can probably find the problem pretty quickly.
Get a new router, the Internet include Smart phones and Tablets.
What were the results from ^^^^ @LuckyGuy test for Internet speed?
The other things that can cause a slow WiFi is baby monitors and cordless phones, yours and the neighbors.
I been through that but it was usually an old computer. Figure the router capability is like a freeway. When you got the router it was made to handle a certain number of vehicles over a set number of lanes. Now say a bunch of development occurs, and now there are dozens of new subdivisions and many people taking to that freeway in a short period of time (rush-hour), everything gets backed up. The freeway was not constructed to accommodate that much traffic. With all the video, Java, streaming and other goodies on the Web, that is more bytes of info (like a great many cars) traveling over the same old freeway. As bandwidth increased there was no place for it to expand via your old router. Look at phones, they went from 1 gig of data to 4 gig. 3 gig use to be the norm but now it is getting pushed out by 4 gig, but even that won’t help if the network cannot handle the bandwidth (traffic), like a freeway that gets bottleneck and slows down. You might be able to update the bios in the router but it may only help a little, if at all.
Someone already mentioned interference with your WIFI signal so I won’t mention that again. Can easily Google things that might interfere.
It could be your actual cable modem and not your WIFI router. I thought this was the issue with my internet as I noticed the speeds were not consistent. I called the technician and he did a reset on his end, then I held (hard reset you might call it?) the little reset button in back about 10 seconds along with unplugging it. At one point we both thought I’d have to get it replaced, never know until tested.
Seems to have improved or fixed the problem for my situation.
Also I’d like someone else to confirm this, but the way I understand it is if you have slow internet connection already and are splitting that data up it is going to be even slower. (If multiple people are using it)
It is like having a nice pie and thinking well everyone wants some so you have to split it up until the point where you don’t have enough anymore or enough for amount of consumption people are wanting from it. The pie is your actual internet connection, or cable modem and the slices going out to people on plates is the WIFI router. (I hope that made sense?)
2 things to consider the speed of YOUR ACTUAL IP going to the cable modem then what your WIFI can handle and push out.
As @LDRSHIP said, it’s a good idea to switch off your modem periodically. It’s something that my internet provider advised me to do years ago, and I find it does help keep the speed up. I think it has something to do with correcting errors that accumulate over time.
A lot of good suggestions. If nothing suggested works, you might want to contact the manufacturer of both router and modem (if they’re separate pieces of equipment) and see about a firmware upgrade.
Rooter needs re-rooting, or should that be rebooting?
Before you call anyone you should run Speedtest. The words “slow” and “fast” are subjective. Whoever you call will want to know the real data.
Speedtest is free and only takes about a minute.
Thanks everyone. I’ll get back to you and let you know what I figure out with your suggestions.
Response moderated (Spam)
Did you run Speedtest? It really is easy. You can run it now and have the answer in 30 seconds.
Then….
Have you checked online for firmware or software updates? It is very possible your router has had quite a few over the years. Look at the modem/router to get model numbers and then do a search.
My husband said he did some sort if speed test when the tech was here. I told him we need to test it directly connecting to the modem and then through wifi. That made a lot of sense to me. We haven’t done it yet.
It’s not a combo router. I have a modem from my cable company and a router that we have owned for many years.
You run the speed test right from your browser. If you can read this page you can run speed test.
I see that my last sentence could be confusing. I wrote: “Look at the modem/router to get…” I should have written “modem and or router”. Your router might have several updates. It is easy to check. Obviously it is best to have speedtest data first so you can tell if it got better.
Enjoy!
It depends on the bandwidth and proxy that may decrease your net speed.
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