Why is my WiFi No Faster?

You may have already had this yourself. You upgraded to a new internet service, perhaps the now-more-common ‘fibre to the premises’ internet (FTTP) where a fibre optic cable comes in and the company providing it install a new router for you. They may even have to put it somewhere else in relation to where your old one was.
You’ve been promised 120mbps, 200mbps even 330mbps. Who knows even more perhaps? “Brilliant! Imagine how fast everything will be after this is all fitted!” you muse to yourself.

I don’t know about you, but most websites I have ever visited all take between 1 and 5 seconds to load. Most of them are more than 3 seconds. This is no different whether you are on a 10mbps connection or 100. I have about 60 at home and 200 at work. There’s absolutely no difference in how long it takes a website to load.

The biggest thing raw internet speed helps with is initiating a download or stream of audio or video, for example song playback or the next episode of The Crown. This is where speed helps. Your device, whether it’s your phone or your TV works out what speed is available, then gives you the best possible quality depending on that available speed. But here’s the interesting bit; the speed available to IT. Meaning, the speed that very device in your hand has got to the outside world. And if it is connected via WiFi to your router a long way away, or even to some older WiFi equipment you had installed a while ago, then it’s speed to the outside world may well be quite, well, slow.
One of the reasons this may be is that you are quite a long way from your router or nearest access point*. Another is that you’re using some older WiFi equipment that runs at slower speeds. Chances are you never even knew it was slower because of your old, slow internet.

OK let’s look at it like this; the internet that comes into your house is the pipe from the outside world. Let’s think of it as your water main, if you like.
The WiFi connection to all your devices is like the pipes and taps in your bathroom or WC. You wouldn’t expect to get the same water pressure at your tap or shower as you do from the water main, as these pipes are smaller. But what you might expect is that each place where there is a tap would get a fair share of the water supply. You could use the same sort of analogy with electricity too; you certainly wouldn’t expect 100 amps available wherever you were in the house at any given moment. 5 amps would probably be more than enough most of the time.

Well that’s just how it is with internet as well. You simply don’t need all that speed at once. I’ve seen so many customers running a speed test with their phone in all sorts of places around their home or business. “Why isn’t it running at the speeds I’ve been promised???”. The short answer is “It doesn’t matter”. The only thing you’ll want all that speed for, is a test to convince yourself that it’s working correctly. Think about this and what speeds are really required;

Music: 0.3 to 1.5mbps per stream. Often less.
TV and films: 3mbps for SD, 5 for HD and 25 for UHD per stream.
Gaming: 6-20mbps is usually fine per user.
Video conferencing: 2mbps up/down broadly speaking per user.

Everything else like web browsing, email etc is fine at around 5-50mbps but will still work fine at 1-2mbps, if a little slower, naturally.

Seeing as UHD is pointless on anything but TVs, then getting anything more than 10mbps on a phone or tablet is a happy accident. Making sure that TV’s and game consoles are on faster speeds is important, and wired connections are always favourable.
If you imagine a busy household where several of the above could be in demand at any one time, then you can see why that ‘pipe’ from the outside world earlier is so important to be as fast as possible. But it certainly doesn’t need to be available for every user. The important bit is that there is enough ‘water’ to go around. Don’t get hung up on what the speed test results are on your phone in every corner of your home.

When planning a network for your home try to think about how many users need access and where they might be. Certainly, a faster connection is always desirable, but you may not need that top-tier service at the premium monthly charge the ISP is asking for it.

*Another thing to consider in larger homes with heavier demands on the internet is the router, switches, and WiFi access points. But we’ll leave that for another time….

Michael Blake is a home technology integrator in the South West of England. He runs Bespoke Installations in Devon and has been doing so for over 20 years.

“I’ve been installing smart home technology across the South West for over 20 years and love this industry. If you’re looking for someone who cares as much as you do about your project, comes up with innovative solutions, is backed by leading manufacturers and trade associations and has an eye for detail then call now for an informal chat. You won’t regret it.”

-Michael Blake, Director.