Your Internet Speed—Are you getting what you’re paying for?
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) make lots of promises about the speed and reliability of your Internet connection. Yet, most businesses don’t really know if they’re getting the upload and download speeds for which they are paying. Many factors affect your connection speed including:
- Age and setup of your hardware: old routers or poorly configured WiFi connections can slow you down significantly
- Congestion: How many users are sharing your connection and what is their demand on it?
- Weak signals from your ISP: Type of connection and distance also play a part
- When you test: Testing during peak usage hours may result in slower connection speeds (See Congestion above).
- Server-Side Issues: Connection speed is dependent on lots of hardware connections (servers and routers) between you and where your data is going to or coming from
- Throttling: Your ISP may slow down certain types of traffic such as peer-to-peer traffic or they may even slow down your connection speeds once you hit a usage ceiling each month
Given the multitude of factors that affect your connection speed, it’s hard to know if you’re getting what you’re paying for. That’s why QualityIP recommends that you have a mini audit to check your hardware, connections, and plan. If you need it—we can help. This is just another service we offer through our managed IT services.
Work faster, not harder and get what you’re paying for from your ISP.