Five tips to improve your broadband speed while working from home

23 April 2020, 14:06 | Updated: 7 June 2023, 08:56

The coronavirus pandemic has shown many in the UK that their WiFi is under strain when used 24/7 by an entire family. Here are some ways to speed up your internet connection while in lockdown.

The coronavirus pandemic has led to more people than ever having to work from home to prevent the spread of the disease, bringing to light the difficulties of having a whole family using one internet source at the same time.

With slow internet and broadband speed becoming a household problem, many are looking for ways to speed up their connection.

Here are just some of the ways you can improve the speed of your broadband and ease some stress on your life.

How to test your internet speed

First and foremost, to ensure your mind isn't playing tricks on you it is good practice to keep a log of your broadband speed. This way you'll be able to understand what a good internet speed is for your household and in times of slow connection you can compare it against your standard speed. An internet search for a speed test will give you a quick answer to how your WiFi is performing.

Be weary of the location of your router

Any wireless device you use can affect the performance of your internet and also where your internet router is placed in your house. It is common that a router sat on the floor will perform worse than a router that is on top of a worktop or table.

Household appliances such as televisions and baby monitors can also impact the speed of your internet depending on how close they are to the source and so distancing these items as far away as possible from your WiFi router will greatly improve internet speed.

Connect your router direct to your computer

If you can, connecting your WiFi router directly to your computer can speed up the internet. To connect the two, you will need an ethernet cable to connect your computer to your router. By connecting directly to your router you should get a faster and more consistent internet connection.

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Make sure your phone line is up to date

Using a bad landline connection can lead to your internet reception being less than satisfactory. To solve this, using a microfilter in your phone socket will speed up your connection, as the filter works to split your phone and internet connections to stop interference between the two.

Plug your router directly into your main phone socket

Avoiding any interference between your home connection and your wireless router, if you plug your WiFi router straight into your phone socket this can improve your internet speeds greatly. A rule of thumb is to use a short, straight and new lead to connect the router to the telephone socket as a means to keep the connection as fast as possible - the longer the lead, the weaker the connection.

Should all of the above measures still leave you with a weak internet connection, you should then contact your internet provider and think about upgrading your router.