My name’s Isaac Fofie and I’ve been a TalkTalk engineer in South London for 3 years. Not many people realise that there are some simple things they can do themselves to increase their internet speed. Here are my top tips to avoid a Christmas morning melt down.
Internet speed and connection depend on a lot of things, including the distance that the wires have to travel from the exchange before they get to your house. There’s not much anyone can do about that (except moving, which is a bit drastic just to improve broadband speed) and I’ve even seen a home with two lines coming in and they have different speeds because they took a different route to get there.
1. Luckily there are some simple things you can do to get a faster internet speed. Plug your router into your master socket. To improve broadband speed, it’s best to plug your router (or modem) straight into the telephone master socket, not an extension.
2. Check your filters. They seem like such small things, but it’s essential to make sure that every telephone socket that you’re plugging something into has a Filter on it. These filters make sure your (analogue) phone calls can’t interfere with the (digital) internet. Unfortunately, something as simple as a pet licking a filter or a football bumping into it can cause damage. Replacements can be purchased from the broadband accessories shop.
3 Cable or WiFi? How are you connecting your computer or device to the router. WiFi is handy but it’s not always as fast as using a cable. If you want to use WiFi and the connection speed is dropping off a lot, it could be that your WiFi frequency is clashing with a neighbour’s. To check this, there are some simple steps here Help with My WiFi
And actually, that’s most of it done. The other things worth checking are:
4. Have you cleared the caches on your computer? Computers store a record of all the web pages you visit, so they will load more quickly next time. But when the cache gets too big, it can look like a slow internet connection. There’s a step-by-step guide to clearing your caches here How do I clear my cache? I like to say, it’s worth clearing your caches about as often as you change your toothbrush.
5. Infected computers aren’t just a security risk, they can also slow down your computer. If you’re with TalkTalk, you can set up HomeSafe in about a minute and that helps protect your computer really well.
6. Last thing to help you improve your internet connection: are there any other machines using your internet connection? If so, try turning off any Peer2Peer applications or Instant Messaging. (If you’re not sure what they are, you’re probably not using them.)
This Christmas, TalkTalk has arranged for a lot of us BrightSparks engineers to be available for FREE home visits to help our customers improve their internet connection. To start, check your speed by visiting the TalkTalk Speed checker.
Check out www.talktalk.co.uk/selfhelp for more info or take a look at our TalkTalk Christmas speed tips one pager.
And that’s it. Thank you and I hope you have a lovely, connected Christmas.
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