Slow Broadband Speed Troubleshooting Steps

Full Fibre is incredibly high performing

Full Fibre broadband is incredibly high performing, and so it would be rare that the underlying full fibre broadband connection would be the cause of any slow speed issues.

Full fibre does not slow down with the distance you are from the exchange/cabinet, and there's plenty of capacity in the backhaul networks and our own network.

This means that most customer reported speed issues tend to be caused by something within your home, such as the Wi-Fi, or at the remote website/service you are connecting to.

However we do not rule anything out, and therefore it's important to check everything methodically.

Test your speed accurately

Please follow this guide to test your connection performance. Please do not use any other testing websites as these may be inaccurate and not reflective of your actual connection.

How to test your broadband speed

Wi-Fi is great for convenience but it's not the best for ultimate performance

Most reports of speed issues are relating to the speed and performance when using Wi-Fi connections. For this reason, and to ensure that the problem is not with the underlying full fibre connection, we recommend you test your connection with a hard-cabled Ethernet connection.

If your hard-cabled test is showing excellent speeds, but Wi-Fi is not, then we know where the issue lies. Conversely, if you are seeing poor hard-cabled performance, then this does need closer scrutiny on the underlying full fibre connection.

Troubleshooting

Slow speeds on Wi-Fi

Giganet includes a high-end Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac Wave 2 4x4 MU-MIMO) router for all home broadband customers. This being said, if you have a large home, or it's made of brick/stone construction, then your Wi-Fi performance will vary depending on your location in relation to the Wi-Fi router.

Even where you are standing next to the Wi-Fi router and have a great signal, you may not get the full broadband speeds expected (especially if you have our top UltraBEAM 1000 plan), and even if you are using a high-end/expensive new laptop ormobile device.

Some of these high-end devices don't support the full Wi-Fi capabilities that our router supports. Therefore if you are seeing around 450-500Mb/s on Wi-Fi, and testing right next to it, then your device probably falls into this category.

See the below guide for further help if you have our UltraBEAM 1000 service and are not getting 900Mb/s speeds on Wi-Fi. This guide gets techie, but it will help to explain why there's such a difference.

Wi-Fi performance on UltraBEAM 1000 (900Mb/s) service

Slow speeds on (Ethernet) hard cabled connections

If you want the very best connection, then we recommend you hard cable your devices to our router.

• Ensure that you are directly connected to our router, and not via any powerline adapters, switches, hubs or other devices that may slow your connection down.
• Try changing the Ethernet cable. Gigabit Ethernet cables need 4 pairs of wires. We have seen some devices ship with Ethernet cables with only 2 pairs of wires within them, this will slow you down to 100Mb/s. If you are only getting 90-94Mb/s on speedtests, this indicates you are connected at 100Mb/s rather than 1Gb/s to the router.
• Ensure your computer is up to date, not overloaded with applications.

If after all of this you are getting slow speeds, then please get in touch so we can investigate further.

Are other people using your connection when you are testing?

If your household or family members are all using the connection at the same time as your testing, then they could be stealing some/all of the capacity. Therefore ask them to disconnect whilst you do any testing.

Wi-Fi Top Tips

Wi-Fi is ideal for convenience, but due to the nature of Wi-Fi transmitting using radio waves, its performance can fluctuate.

• WiFi performance will be significantly reduced when distance between your device and the Giganet UltraHub is increased.
• Put your Wi-Fi router in an optical spot:
  • Do place it on a window sill, or shelf, about 4-5ft off the ground.
  • Ideally position in the middle of your room, not in the corner.
  • Do position the front of the router facing towards the direction where most of your devices are connecting to.
  • Don't place the router on the floor
  • Don't place the router facing the wrong direction, either outside, towards a wall, or facing the floor.
  • Don't place anything in front of the router
  • Do not place the router behind any large objects such as a TV
  • Do not place the router nearby any large metal objects such as a radiator
  • Do not place any other Wi-Fi devices such as a Sky Q box near the router
• Building materials will make a big impact to range and performance.
  • Stone, Brick and Concrete walls or floors will have a huge impact on range and speed.
  • More recent homes with aluminium foil backed insulation foam will also have a similar effect to a thick brick wall.
  • Large metal objects such as radiators, ovens, fridges, and other kitchen appliances will all block the signal. 
• Checking your Wi-Fi performance:
  • Your device should indicate WiFi strength with the WiFi icon.
  • At least two bars are needed for reliability.
  • However for best performance, you will need all the bars possible.