Why is My Internet So Slow?

"Why is my Internet so slow" is a question that bothers every Internet savvy person. Let's figure out the reasons that slow down your Internet connection.

Internet is a wide network of computers across the world. Be it accessing personal emails or information portals, be it information gathering for business ventures or academic learning, Internet gets you all the information you want in seconds. But each one of us, at some time or the other, has been troubled by the intermittent slow down of the Internet, when we desperately need the connection for some important work. Isn't it? So you must be wondering: "Why is my Internet so slow all of a sudden?". There are many technical bottlenecks responsible for Internet connection problems. Let's figure them out!

Reasons for Slow Internet Connectivity

A slow Internet connection has many tangible reasons. Even if you own a high speed connection like DSL, you may still experience a slow down in Internet connection. Below listed are a few reasons that help you decipher the problems related to slow Net connectivity

Type of Connection
Whenever you set up an Internet connection, the type of connection plays an important role in determining the speed factor. There are basically three types of Internet connection: Cable, DSL and Dial up, amongst which cable is the fastest and dial up is the slowest. Now if you are using a dial up connection, the type of modem used for the connection to Internet matters the most. For instance, if the telephone wiring of your home is deteriorating, the telephonic system might pick up stray signals from other phone lines, causing a congestion in the network. The modem has to carry the same information until the signals have been transmitted to the destination without interruption. The first sign indicating a slow down in Internet connection can be detected by a crackling noise in your phone. In such cases, contact your telephone provider and ask him to check the telephone lines, inside out, to see if there is any damage to the wiring.

In a dial up connection, you would have noticed that a persistent speed of 56 Kbps is not available most of the time, attributing to the reasons just stated. However, a good phone line with the latest modem can definitely speed up dial up connection, offering you a decent speed of 45-50 Kbps. Nowadays, Internet providers also provide Fiber Optic Service (FiOS) that connects the machine to Internet using optical network.

Computer Woes (Malicious Software)
A very common observation during Internet slow down is a lot of pop up windows clogging your screen, or a lot of add on programs getting installed on your web browser, without prompting the user. Many a time, your machine just hangs, throwing messages concerning the amount of memory the computer has in its hard disk. When there is a higher frequency of such cases, it is apparent that malicious software are attacking your system. The major performance bottlenecks affecting the speed of your Internet are caused by spyware, malware and viruses. Spyware are software programs which precisely do what their name suggests! Spying! These programs monitor the system and collect information on users without the knowledge of the system or the user. A major issue with spyware programs is they are not detectable easily!

Virus
Another pest that slows down your Internet is a computer virus. As the name suggests, it installs a computer code which creates multiple copies of itself. You must have definitely come across mails warning you, not to open certain emails with some "xyx" ppt files. The code replicates the infected message a hundred times and starts spamming it in the network by eating up the bandwidth of the network and causing a severe network congestion. Besides these, the add-ons only further aggravate the poor performance of the system by self installing facilities for multimedia and document viewing on the search tool bar of your Internet explorer (which may not be required). And the Internet explorer, like all the computer programs requires memory, computing power and the disk space to store the temp files and cookies for the site accessed. So every time you access a web page, it is downloaded to the disk and saved as a temporary file (Try accessing the Temp folder in your system for better understanding). If there are risk factors like add-on programs and malware programs clouding your web browser, the network traffic is bound to clog and not only the internet speed will deteriorate, but also will your machine performance (which will be low due to the amount of disk space being consumed). Hence, it is advised to run the disk clean up utility program on a regular basis, which clears the browser history and other temporary files that are eating up your disk space in the machine.

External Factors
Besides the above stated factors responsible for your slow Internet connection, all of a sudden, there are some other reasons over which one cannot have much control! Travel booking sites, job portals, e-shopping sites and banking applications are the most visited websites across the world. However well they are designed, they always encounter more network traffic than what has been anticipated. For instance, 1000 users all over the world might access a website simultaneously for various reasons. Such unavoidable factors too play a major role in slowing down your Internet connection. The network traffic also depends on the peak period of the day. For instance, many people try to connect to banking applications during the peak hours of daytime and this can slow down the Internet speed. Many a time, this becomes a palpable reason for corporate sector (specially IT industry) to block internet access during office hours to prevent the employees from downloading bulk files from Internet. Also many of you might be wondering as to "Why the Internet becomes so slow at night". Hope your question is answered now! Many people after a day's work access Internet in the night and that is the peak time for the maximum Internet usage.

Hardware Malfunction
Apart from the software related concerns, your Internet speed can considerably slow down if your modem-router configuration is not correct. Updating hardware is as important as updating software. At times, the Internet connection might behave sluggish due to an older network interface card (NIC). Other reasons could possibly be due to outdated Domain Name System (DNS) tables (due to which the signals transmitted are directed into wrong addresses of the Internet Service Provider network) and interference of the wireless Internet signals with the signals emitted by your home appliances (like microwave). A solution for a better performance of the system when connected to Internet, is by increasing the RAM. Nowadays, free Internet boosters are also available to enhance the downloading speed of bulky applications on Internet.

So now I believe, you know the reason behind your annoying problem of "Why is my Internet so slow?". The best time to access Internet is in the wee hours of morning when the network traffic is minimum. Also keep your computer protected with updated anti viruses software and firewall applications to protect it against the invasion of malicious programs (like viruses). If you are planning to get an Internet connection, go for a DSL connection or a cable connection. And when you are accessing Internet, curb your desire to open some unknown applications, when the browser prompts you to permit the application to run on your machine. So, happy but safe surfing on the Internet!!!