Why is my fiber internet so slow?
Getting fiber internet must give you arguably some of the fastest internet services you’ve ever experienced. As a result, whenever the fiber connection you are using begins to slow down, it becomes extremely complicated to determine what could be causing the slowness. By now, you might be wondering why your fiber internet is not as fast as you thought it would be, and there are several possibilities.
Interference
Similar to any connection that uses wired cables, AT&T Fiber Internet is vulnerable to disruption of the wiring system. Fiber optic cables themselves could also be an issue – any physical damage to them would slow the process. For example, rats nibbling on the cables, physical damage during cable laying, construction activities or even applying excessive mechanical strain on cables can disrupt these light signals. Other factors, such as climatic conditions, for example, low temperatures, also lead to them. If connectors are not good or equipment is not properly maintained, it can disrupt the light signals that are amplified.
In case you believe there is a problem with the cable or the signals interfering with the connection, contact your internet service provider and ask them to check the fiber optics cabling and replace any faulty parts. But remember that this may involve running new cables and hence there may be service charges that may be incurred.
Congested Bandwidth
Internet bandwidth in the case of fiber means the highest possible amount of data per time that can be transmitted over the line. There is the likelihood that the capacity can be congested if too many users/devices seek to access high-bandwidth applications at the same time. This leads to slow Internet connection speed, latency issues, and delays in watching videos and listening to music.
Usually, congestion occurs at night when everyone is at home watching movies or gaming online as congestion often leads to slowed speed for the entire neighborhood. Video games, face-to-face video calls, file downloads and uploads, HD video streaming, and video conferencing demand a strong bandwidth. Consider simple updates to automatic devices such as game consoles, computers, and mobile devices, as they can hog bandwidth in the background as well.
It is suggested that one should attempt to use the high bandwidth activities at home in turn. If there are specific times of the day that are constrained by bandwidth, then the devices should be set to auto-update when the bandwidth is likely to be high, for example during the night. Reduce the video quality – when people are streaming, say, a 1080HD video, they would be using more than triple the bandwidth of a 720HD video. It is also useful to connect devices such as media players through a wired ethernet connection to lessen the load on the wireless and the need to allocate bandwidth. However, the call to your provider offering to purchase a better internet package with a faster connection speed may be the only solution for your household.
Wi-Fi Signal Issues
Other bandwidth issues can be traced to wifi complications rather than fiber cabling challenges. The following are some of the ways through which common factors reduce and interfere with the wifi signals; distance between the router and the device, walls, and other barriers, appliances, and electronics that may interfere with the router’s frequency, outdated router technology, and incompatible devices.
For this factor, it is necessary to consider the location of your wifi router. It should be centrally situated in an open area and safely fenced with adequate parking space. Less distance and fewer physical barriers that exist in between result in better signal strength and better connection speed. A multistory home may warrant the use of different routers or wifi extenders per floor to ensure adequate coverage. Make sure that all the connected devices are compatible with Wi-Fi 6 These new routers are compliant with the latest standards, 802.11ax Wi-Fi 6, and these are designed to offer not only faster data rates but also more network capacity for many devices. Details of g/b/n routers show that older routers reach their operating capacity very quickly. Every piece of electronics in the house sends radio signals and this includes microwave ovens, wireless speakers, baby monitors, and LED bulbs just to mention but a few and these are capable of causing interference to routers that are set to use the standard 2.4GHz. Adjust to the 5GHz band in router settings when possible to have a clearer connection. Furthermore, updating the firmware of the router often can also help improve its performance as well as compatibility with newer standards.
I even find myself only getting several hundred megabits over wifi in my home even though fiber advertises gigabit speeds. Equipment upgrade is a way of releasing higher throughput, as indicated earlier. Or you can give more priority to router connections for those tasks that are most sensitive to the amount of bandwidth available such as video streaming and gaming.
Congestion Beyond Your Home
Internet connection problems do not solely exist within your house’s network setting sometimes. They also get influenced by congestion on the overall network of roads. Electronic mail messages pass through numerous intersections and servers from your home router to other locations in the internet space. This is because when any of the paths are congested with traffic, it brings about cumulative bottlenecks that slow down connection speeds additionally at every other subsequent point.
Businesses and corporations, in the office, use gigabytes of bandwidth for applications such as video conferencing, data synchronization/backup, online collaboration tools, business software applications accessing the cloud, and so on Thousands of students in schools and universities access networks with applications such as video lectures, virtual lessons, social networks, recreational videos, and music, etc. In the evening, everybody goes home and switches on video chat and streaming services. This leads to a tidal wave of usage that floods infrastructure thus lowering the speed for the whole region.
Purchasing and improving new domestic equipment and connectivity for local ISPs involve huge capital investment that would take years to extend to the whole world. Reporting regional down helps to identify interconnection points that might be over-utilized and regions that will require additional capacity addition though this has to be done through contacting the provider. For now, attempt to schedule uncertain usage during non-peak periods where feasible to help reduce some of the crowded times. Regularly pausing the connectivity and manually synchronizing cloud services and devices overnight rather than at regular intervals also helps reduce the risk.
Throttling by ISPs
Most Internet service providers gainfully engage in the throttling of certain applications and services, namely online video and download. In this way, they control the bandwidth amount that heavy services such as Netflix consume, thereby managing their capacity needs. This enables them to save on infrastructure costs while at the same time providing the consumers with the speeds they promise for simple web surfing and email access. But it ends up making the service slow, making it lag, buffer, and stream at lower quality – all this to the customer who paid for a high-speed plan.
Ensure no limitations such as restricted usage and maximum bandwidth allowed for video streaming have been set within your ISP account. You may be able to change these limits to higher levels for better streaming, although sometimes comes with an extra charge. On the other hand, utilization of a good VPN encryption tunnel can easily mask media streaming from the traffic shaping policies to be applied mid-route. This is made possible with the ability to maintain higher speeds for continuous streaming of services such as Netflix or ESPN+. Just be careful that VPN usage is against the ISP terms and conditions of service and should be used cautiously.
In summary –
fiber connections offer one gigabit-per-second speed during ideal scenarios where minimal obstructions prevent the use of direct cabling to the devices. However, in practice, many factors can negatively impact internet speed, ranging from congestion during peak hours, outdated routers, interference from other devices and signals, distance and types of construction materials, high density of the network in the region, and in some instances, intentional throttling by some service providers. This kind of dilemma requires a step-by-step approach when analyzing every possible reason to answer the question “Why is my fiber internet slow”. This shows that sometimes it’s very hard to explain just why certain speeds are achieved or exceeded, but recognizing and solving the constraining factor(s) can assist in making speeds within realistic confines for a home environment.
Upgrade to faster, more reliable AT&T Fiber Internet today! Call us at +1 844-905-5002 and get connected with speeds that keep you ahead.
