Why is my home internet so slow?

There are alot of reasons that could be causing this problem.

In most cases its as simple as the signal being weak.

The positioning of your laptop/pc in ralation to the router is a very important factor.

The closer your comptuer is to the wireless router, the better the signal should be.

You should also check what is inbetween your computer and the router.

Electrical appliances like TV's, fans or sound systems, will emit whats called an "Electro Magnetic Feild" which can cause loss of signal to your wireless connection, just like they can with tv reception.

And of course, things like walls, and floors being in between your comptuer and the router, will cause some loss of signal depending on their thickness, and type of material.

So firstly, try and figure out if there is anything inbetween your computer and the router that could be causing the loss of signal.

If it is a case of floors or walls cutting down your signal strength, then you can buy signal boosters from your local electrical stores.

If you cant find anything at all that could be causing a loss of signal, then your router may have a bad wireless broadcaster.

I hope this has helped you in some way.

Good luck!

Tom

My first thought was that your neighbors were using your wireless, but it would be slow with it connected directly if the wireless is still active. You can check your router settings to see who the clients are on your connection to make sure. I would try to reset the router. Somewhere on it should be a little reset hole that you can insert a paperclip or something into to reset it and see if that changes anything. Don't forget to re-secure your main password and encryption settings after. The router may be malfunctioning or maybe its just a slower one. If its not a wireless G or N then maybe its time for a new one. If you wanted to really find out then take it to a techie friend to hook up somewhere else to see how it works on a different service provider. You could check around on Craigslist, Goodwill, free yahoo sites for your county, etc. I got a new wireless N router from Goodwill for 5.99 a couple of months ago. Newegg.com has killer prices on computer stuff as well with fast delivery. Hope you get it straightened out. Slow is no fun!

Edit-Good call Mark. The computer could be connecting to a different network, especially if you are moving around the house with slightly fluctuating signal strengths from other routers near yours. You could be trying to connect to the wrong network. If this is so, then the wireless settings need changed on the laptop to make sure it is set to only connect to your own home primary connection, and not searching for the best connection. I saw this happen and it is highly probable that this could be the problem.

Tom hit most of the reasons. If the router gets too warm, the wireless will slow down long before the wired part will. (The radio gets noisy when it gets hot. That causes the computer to miss packets [think of trying to listen to a radio program through static], so it keeps asking the router to resend. A 54mbps connection that has to send each packet an average of 100 times before it gets through has an effective speed of 500kbps.)

Make sure you lock it down / secure it. Other people outside your house are using your wireless? Also, if you haven't renamed it, maybe you and a neighbor both have a router named "linksys" or "netgear" and you're connecting to theirs not yours? Put a password on it and rename it. Reconnect. Voila! Faster!

If it doesn't have security enabled, then all of your neighbors are leeching off of your internet.