Not all internet service providers are built the same. Some are great in one area but less stellar in a different part of town. And some are just not up to par. Not to mention that there’s a huge amount of variability in last mile connections.

If your speeds are as expected but not delivering what you need, then you’ll need to investigate going up a tier or two to gain extra speed and performance. It may be more costly, but could be worthwhile if it saves you the time and energy you would spend dealing with a slow connection while working remotely.

If your speeds are consistently worse than expected, talk to your provider to see if there’s an unknown issue that may be slowing down your connection. Then if all else fails, talk to your neighbors to see which providers they’re using and how happy they are with their speeds. Try out a competing provider if your speed tests are disappointing and your remote work connectivity is affected by disconnects.

5G will increasingly become a strong alternative to fixed broadband as it becomes available, starting with denser urban environments. Satellite providers such as Starlink may soon become an excellent alternative for people outside of urban environments who have limited broadband connectivity.

Even the best providers can go down sometimes. But when it happens, how can you tell if it’s your internet or if it’s theirs?

If your internet service provider is down, then you should first go to your providers website using another available internet connection to see if there are any reports of outages. They typically share that information within your account section or as a notification on their website itself - e.g. Comcast Xfinity.

If there aren’t any reported outages but you are experiencing one, your provider may not be aware of it yet or is in the midst of investigating it. In those instances, Twitter is a valuable resource and you can search for “[internet provider] outage” to see if there are any reports from frustrated customers who may be dealing with the same issue.

If your internet itself seems to be working, but you aren’t able to access a specific website or cloud provider, Downforeveryoneorjustme.com and Downdetector are useful resources that will tell you if a website is offline. If you’re affected but nobody else is, there may be issues with your network or provider for you to investigate.

Are other people in your house streaming Netflix, watching YouTube or playing video games during the day when you need to get work done? That may very well be affecting your remote work connectivity if you're on a slow connection or if there are many devices connected to the same Wi-Fi hotspot. You can make your internet more reliable by sending their traffic through a different Wi-Fi frequency than yours by changing your router settings.

Routers typically operate using both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz frequency bands. Often times your router can split those bands into separate networks, if activated in your router’s settings. By enabling it, you can use one Wi-Fi band for your work-related traffic and other traffic will go through the other band. While 5 GHz can be faster, 2.4 GHz offers better range, which should factor into your decision about which to use for work.

Most newer routers will allow you to create a guest network, which you can typically use to limit the maximum amount of speed that separate network consumes and even the hours it can be used. Meaning you can share it with your kids without worrying about them taking necessary bandwidth away from your work.

Quality of Service features within your router may give you an additional layer of control, by enabling you to choose which traffic a router should prioritize, such as video calling as a higher priority than gaming traffic. That’s similar to what Speedify’s software can do to detect important live streaming traffic like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, etc.

You may not always be able to plan when you need to hop on a video conference, but you can plan almost everything else you do online.

The internet is most congested during several peak hours that now can stretch from lunchtime to around 9:30 p.m. If a download or your family’s Netflix fix can wait until off-peak hours, then you’ll have more bandwidth for work during the hours when you need to be online and working.

When you’re outside of home, you have less control over what others are doing on networks you’re connected to. However, you’re still able to control your own activities and choose not to use bandwidth you may need for other tasks. And it’s even easier if you have a tool like Speedify that helps your most important traffic remain unaffected by spreading out the risk of network congestion.

Speedify will help you add your connections together and optimize traffic. If you’re at home, you can add to your internet performance by ensuring that your Wi-Fi signal is strong wherever you use it.

Having a single router may not be enough if your space is large, such as working on a different floor than your router with a lot of walls, ceilings and other objects in the way. Range extenders are an option and are typically inexpensive. If you’re shopping for one, you should consider one made by the company that created your router - setup will usually be faster and compatibility will be more seamless.

Another option to consider is to use a laptop or desktop as an extender using Connectify Hotspot. It gives you the benefits of an extender without having to invest in a new piece of hardware. 

By adding all of the combined capabilities of your hardware and software together, your work traffic will flow through even the most congested network with ease.