Five easy ways your business can improve its internet speed
When you’re in the flow of your work, there is nothing worse than a troublesome internet connection slowing you down. Network speeds can massively affect a business’ productivity, so to keep your office running smoothly, business broadband provider Glide has listed its top five tips to get your internet running at full capacity.
Reboot your modem and router
This first one might seem simple and obvious, but turning your router off and on again really is a very effective way of speeding up your internet connection. Unplug the device, wait for two minutes and plug it back in. After a few minutes everything should be back up and running at a greater speed.
Monitor your real time network
Looking at your network connections in real time allows you to identify active devices, applications and users that could be slowing down your internet speed. If there is an app that is not crucial to the business, such as media streaming on Netflix, it could be wasting valuable network speed. Once you have identified what could be slowing you down, your IT manager can set a cap on the amount of bandwidth allocated to a specific application or user, which will then reduce its impact on the rest of the business.
Virus and malware scans
Make sure you are running virus and malware scans regularly and at a convenient time. High quality programmes that scan your computer for harmful software are essential, but they can slow down your internet speed. To make sure they are as unobtrusive as possible, you should arrange with your IT manager to schedule these at specific times, such as out of office hours. It is recommended that you run a scan at least once a week.
Clear your browser cache
Your browser cache is where files are stored to help load web pages, especially those you use most often. While they are generally quite helpful, when the cache becomes too full it may affect your browser’s performance and slow it down. Each browser has its own way of clearing the cache, so do a quick Google search if you’re unsure how to do it. It’s up to you how often you do this, but once or twice a year is the usual recommendation.
Check your internet speed
If you have completed the four tips above and are still not happy with your internet performance, it’s a good idea to do a speed check ( https://glidebusiness.co.uk/speed). Such online tests let you see what internet speeds you’re actually achieving. It’s advised to do several speed tests throughout the day in case your speeds are varying at different times. If you are getting a slower speed than you were promised by your service provider, get in touch and they should be able to talk you through your options.