Slow internet is one of the most common reasons businesses call us, and the first instinct is usually to buy a faster plan. Sometimes that is the right move. Often it is not, because the bottleneck sits somewhere between the carrier’s equipment and your team’s laptops. A few simple tests usually show where.
Step 1: Test wired, at the router, at a busy time
Plug a laptop directly into a spare port on your router or firewall with a network cable and run a speed test during your busiest hour. Run it two or three times and note download, upload and latency (ping). Then run the same test on Wi-Fi from a typical desk.
Wired result close to your plan speed, Wi-Fi much slower: the connection is fine. Look at the Wi-Fi.
Wired result well below your plan speed: check the router or firewall first, then the connection itself.
Speeds look fine but calls and video still stutter: look at latency and upload, especially while backups run.
Common causes inside the office
Wi-Fi coverage and congestion. One consumer access point for a whole floor, devices stuck on the crowded 2.4 GHz band, or walls and cabinets between people and the access point all cut real-world speed. Business-grade access points placed near where people work make a large difference.
A router or firewall that cannot keep up. Many older firewalls pass far less traffic than a gigabit plan delivers once security features such as intrusion prevention or content filtering are turned on. Check the device’s rated throughput with those features enabled.
Older cabling and switches. Category 5 cable and 100 Mbps switch ports cap each connected device at 100 Mbps, no matter how fast the circuit is.
Uploads crowding out everything else. A cloud backup, large file sync or video upload can fill the upload side of a cable connection, which makes browsing, calls and video meetings feel slow for everyone. Scheduling backups after hours or setting quality of service (QoS) rules helps.
More devices than the plan was sized for. Cameras, guest Wi-Fi and streaming all share the same connection. A traffic report from the firewall often shows where the bandwidth goes.
When the problem really is the connection
If wired tests at the router are consistently well below your plan, or speed drops at the same time every day, the cause may be the line, the modem or congestion on the carrier’s network. Cable broadband is a shared service, so slowdowns at busy hours are not unusual. Report your results to the carrier with times and screenshots. If the connection still cannot keep up with how your business works, symmetrical fiber from carriers such as Verizon Fios or Lightpath may be a better fit, and our overview of business internet services compares the options.
Speed you need versus speed you buy
Upgrading makes sense when the connection is the bottleneck and your use is growing: more cloud applications, more video calls, larger files. Our guide to whether your business internet is ready for VoIP explains the upload, latency and jitter numbers worth checking. If you are planning a move, our guide to how long business internet installation takes helps with timing.
Where we fit
We help businesses work out whether a faster plan will actually fix the problem, compare the carriers available at your address, and price an upgrade only when the connection is the real constraint. Request a quote and send us your speed test results, and we will tell you what we see.