What you can do if you have a bad internet connection

Users need good connections

In the year 2021 or at some point in it, many students had to resort to online classes via the Internet, and teleworkers also had to do the same to be able to work properly. This means that we need a good Internet connection in our homes, so that we can carry out this learning without problems and also work without many problems.

A good starting point could be to have a connection for each online student of 20 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload. With the fiber optic connections available in Spain for a large part of the population, this is feasible. However, the speed described can sometimes fall short and more if we had an ADSL connection. In this aspect, the number of users also influences and the fact that we carry out more and more complex tasks. For example, video calls that require higher resolution, and therefore need more bandwidth.

What can you do if you have a bad connection

The first thing we should do is measure the stability of your Internet connection. One of the best ways we can do it is by doing a speed test here. This is the result that I have obtained by Wi-Fi in a connection of 100Mps by Wi-Fi:

In the event that an online student has a very low speed, he could try these solutions:

• Reboot your device, whether it’s a computer, smartphone or other smart device can be a good starting point. It helps to free RAM memory and to remove any program that we have in the background.
• Check the strength of the Wi-Fi signal reaching your device. On an Android device, for example, look in Settings, Wi-Fi, and if you click on the SSID or name of your Wi-Fi network, you can see the status of your wireless connection.
• If you are connected by Wi-Fi verify that you are connected to the correct band. If you want a higher speed and you are relatively close to the router, the one that suits you is the 5GHz band. On the contrary, if you are far away, even if you lose speed, you are interested in the 2.4GHz band to gain speed.
• Try restarting your internet connection by turning off the router. Although this class of electronic devices can work well without turning them off for weeks or months, it can be interesting to restart them. This frees up resources and cleans up the NAT table.
• Check your router placement. So it has to be placed in a central place in the house. It should also not be near electronic devices and well placed antennas. Here you have explained how to place the router to improve Wi-Fi speed.
• try to connect by ethernet network cable if your team allows it.
• Look on the outside, look at your facade or the places where your Internet wiring goes. If you see that the cable is in poor condition, notify your ISP.

Other alternatives

An online student cannot afford to be without an Internet connection, just as if you work from home you cannot have connection drops. In case of a breakdown of your connection or your router you have to look for solutions. One of the best opportunities you can find is the use of the Wi-Fi networks of municipal libraries and other places of public administration such as cultural centers.

We would also have the Wi-Fi that they offer in the hospitality sector. Here we refer to cafeterias, fast food services such as McDonald’s and the like. It would be about looking for a free public Wi-Fi in which the user can carry out his tasks.

Another very interesting option would be to share the Internet connection via 4G or 5G with our smartphone through Tethering, thanks to them we will obtain a great improvement in connection speeds and also lower latency. Finally, it should be noted that there are already unlimited data rates that will mean that in the coming years users can be connected to the 5G network and not be worried about the data consumed.