“The internet is slow” can mean half a dozen different things with completely different causes. This guide gives you a method for narrowing it down, which is far more useful than a list of random fixes.
Work through it in order. Each step eliminates a whole category of cause.
Step 1: Is it everything, or just one thing?
This single question eliminates most possibilities immediately.
- Only one website or app is slow? The problem is almost certainly at their end, not yours. Try a different site to confirm.
- Only one device is slow? The problem is that device — skip to step 4.
- Everything on Wi-Fi is slow but a cabled device is fine? It’s your Wi-Fi — skip to step 3.
- Everything is slow, including on a cable? Continue to step 2.
Step 2: Check for a known incident
Look at our network status page. If there’s an incident affecting your area, it’s listed there with updates. No amount of troubleshooting at your end will help.
Step 3: Establish a baseline on a cable
- Plug a laptop directly into the router with an Ethernet cable. This is the most important step in the whole guide.
- Pause everything else — downloads, streaming, backups, console updates — on every device.
- Run a speed test and note the result along with the time.
- Compare it to your package. Close to your package speed means the line is healthy and the problem is on your side of the router. Well below at all times of day is worth reporting.
- Repeat at a different time — ideally once during the evening peak and once late at night.
Expect to see somewhat less than the headline package speed even on a cable — protocol overhead accounts for a few percent. What matters is whether you’re broadly in range, not whether you hit the exact figure.
Step 4: Rule out the device
- Test a second device in the same place. If one is slow and others are fine, the device is the problem.
- Restart the slow device. Fixes a surprising proportion of cases.
- Check its network port speed. Older laptops have 100 Mbps ports, capping them around 94 Mbps regardless of your line.
- Check its Wi-Fi capability. Devices more than a few years old may only support 2.4 GHz, which limits real-world speed considerably.
- Look at background activity. System updates, cloud sync and antivirus scans all consume bandwidth quietly.
- Check available storage and memory. A device running low on either performs badly at everything, including networking.
Step 5: Look at your Wi-Fi
If cabled speeds are good and Wi-Fi speeds aren’t, the connection is fine and the wireless network needs attention.
- Move the router somewhere central, high and in the open.
- Use the 5 GHz band for nearby devices.
- Change the 2.4 GHz channel to 1, 6 or 11.
- Reduce the number of connected devices.
- Consider mesh or an access point for a larger home.
Our Wi-Fi signal guide covers each of these in detail.
Step 6: Account for your household
Home packages are shared. Before concluding there’s a fault, check what else is consuming the connection:
| Activity | Typical demand |
|---|---|
| Browsing and email | Under 1 Mbps |
| Music streaming | Around 1 Mbps |
| HD video streaming | 5–8 Mbps per stream |
| 4K video streaming | 20–25 Mbps per stream |
| Video call | 2–4 Mbps |
| Game download | As much as it can get |
| Cloud backup | As much as it can get |
Two 4K streams and a game update will comfortably saturate a 40 Mbps package. That isn’t a fault — it’s arithmetic.
Step 7: Report it properly
If you’ve worked through the above and cabled speeds are consistently poor, log a fault. Include:
- Three or more speed test results with the time of day
- Whether each was on cable or Wi-Fi
- Which devices are affected and which aren’t
- Whether it’s constant or follows a daily pattern
- What you’ve already tried
That level of detail routinely turns a multi-day investigation into a same-day fix.