Slow Internet or slow Wifi?

It’s a really interesting question, which I got asked by a customer last week.

I was looking into reports of poor wireless coverage, which I’d expect to result in the wireless signal to be weak, or perhaps the wireless network disappearing altogether from the list of available networks. However, on this occasion, there was no indication of this behavior. 

Having asked the customer more about the problems, and why they thought they needed a wireless network upgrade, they told me about issues accessing streaming services such as Netflix, iPlayer, and YouTube. They would frequently buffer whilst on the Wifi, so surely it must be a wireless problem? Right? Well…

This could, of course, be a wireless problem, like the wireless equipment not handling multiple wireless devices very well. We could replace all the existing wireless devices, with super shiny and expensive wireless access points – but how could I guarantee this would solve the problem? Well, I couldn’t!

When you’re suffering from problems like this, your starting point must be the Internet itself. If the Internet isn’t up to scratch, then no matter when super Wifi you have in place, it could potentially be the bottleneck. Having hooked up my laptop directly to their router (using a network cable, wireless testing doesn’t count in my book!), I headed over to speedtest.net and carried out a speed test of the Internet connection.

The results were 16Mb download speeds. Not super fast, but also not super terrible. But in the context of this scenario, it was indeed the bottleneck. They were potentially up to 100 devices connected to this network at peak times, many of which, would be wanting to use TV streaming services. As soon as a small handful of people all started watching 4K Ultra HD movies and programs, the Internet would basically seize to exist for everyone else.

It may appear to be ‘the wifi’, but even with the very best in wireless technology, you’d still have the buffering and slow Internet speeds, given the volume of devices and what they were doing with the connection itself.

You should also be mindful of both the technology you have in place for these type of issues, but also have the context of who and what is accessing the services. Only then, you can be in a position to put together a plan which might improve things for the wifi or Internet.

Gavin Moorhouse is the Cheif Honcho at Lucid Computer Solutions, who has been improving wireless and Internet speeds in Worcestershire, Warwickshire and The Midlands since 2008.