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A typical question that I always get is "How to speed up my wired broadband?". It may sound simple and many people would give you all kind of suggestions in order to improve your wired or cable broadband speed. But let me tell you this, there are a lot of factors that could affect your connection speed, not just because of the Internet Service Provider (ISP) such as TM Streamyx . This is perhaps why some people who subscribed to the same ISP as you face no problem in getting good speed while you’re struggling to get enough speed to check your mail.

So in order to speed up your wired broadband, consider the following 8 tips:

1. Identify what your maximum speed is

The standard broadband over telephone lines (e.g. Streamyx) degrades in speed the further the line is from the telephone exchange (some people call it exchange port). When you subscribed to a 1Mbps package for example, do expect the connection to achieve a slightly lower speed (not lower than 800Kbps). A constant speed test would help you to get an idea of the maximum speed that your line can achieve. So, you can avoid spending more money upgrading.

2. Avoid using telephone extension cables

Avoid connecting your modem/router using an extension cable. Poor quality extension cables are probably the number one cause of poor broadband speeds. Extension cables can massively increase interference on your line and cause broadband speeds to be lowered. Instead of using extension cables, it is better to connect the router/modem directly to the phone socket and then use a long ethernet cable to connect your computer to the router. Studies have proven that long ethernet cable would not affect the speed of your connection.

3.Understand the difference between bits and bytes

 A lot of people are confused with these two terms. Most broadband deals and speed tests are listed in terms of megabits or kilobits per second (Mbps or Kbps) while the progress speeds listed for most downloads are given as megabytes or kilobytes per second (MB/s or KB/s). So, for a 1Mbps connection, you can expect a download speed of 128 kilobytes per second and not 1MB/s as many are thinking of.

4. Use microfilters

Do make sure all other phones/faxes/digiboxes/etc in the house are connected via a microfilter so some call it as spliter. Microfilters prevent other devices connected to your telephone system from interfering with your broadband signal.

5. Check auto-update applications running in the background

I noticed many people do not realise that they are actually enjoying a decent internet speed but the speed is actually used for other unnecessary  "background" applications that are downloading new updates especially those with large file size. Having these background apps running would make your browsing speed very slow. So, always disable the auto-update function on your software and do manual update instead.

6. Tweak your internet speed using optimizer

There are actually a lot of software out there that could boost your internet speed. The popular one is TCP Optimizer by Speedguide.net. This software is easy to be used and it can fine-tune your system for better internet connection.

7. Avoid multiple downloads of large files

This is pretty obvious. Some people complained they couldn’t access a certain site when they are actually downloading multiple large files especially via P2P software like BitTorrent. It is always advisable to do the download of large files when you’re not using the browser, or limit the speed to be used by those P2P software so that you can still surf the web smoothly.

8. Get a better modem or router

It is good to get a better modem or router as it may decrease the chances of slowing down your connection speed. If you have been using a modem for quite some time (say around 2 years) and noticed that the speed is getting slower, it might just be the time to get a new one. A brand that people often give good reviews is LinkSys by Cisco.

 

Of course, if you’re experiencing pretty bad connection for a period of time, then contact your ISP immediately. If they failed to solve your problem after several complaints, then consider changing ISP.