wifi slows down when devices connect?

Question

I have verizon "high speed internet" the box they gave me does wifi too. My issue is both my daughters have a tablet I have a lap top n use wifi on my phone and xbox.. but when more than 2 things are connected it runs slow nothing loads etc.. what can I do???

Answer 1

I would start by having everyone power down their device and then with the laptop I would head over to www.speedtest.net and it will run a test to see how fast your bandwidth really is. If you have an ethernet wire you may wish to do this on the ethernet and not the wifi.

As mentioned by others, the real demand comes with Video streaming (youtube, netflix, amazon on demand, etc). If you all want to stream video, I would recommend you need 5 Mb per device. So compare this with what speedtest reports.

Does the performance depend on what room you are accessing the internet? Possibly you have a small gain antennae and you are at times on the boundary of the wifi.

Are you located in an apartment? Possibly you could be receiving interference from one of your neighbors wifi routers. In this case you may need to have Verizon switch your wifi to a different channel. Depending on the type of radio in the wifi this can be a challenge as the G radio essentially have only 3 options (1, 6, or 11). So with many neighbors you may never have a "clean" signal.

Answer 2

When multiple devices connect to the internet, you'll have to basically share the internet you get. Its called bandwidth and you're allotted a certain amount by your internet provider. As more devices start to use the internet, it slows down on each device because you get a "slice" of your internet connectivity. If you wanted to improve this you could do a few things:

1.) Get faster internet speeds. If you want to have 3+ devices able to use the internet for gaming or streaming videos you'll need faster speeds. I'd recommend speeds above 20 Mbps (megabits per second). Verizon unfortunately isn't the fastest internet provider and charges a bit more for faster speeds. Consider a cable company as your internet provider (better price and speed).



2.) Ask Verizon for a faster wireless router or device. The device that gives you wireless in your home may not be fast enough to deliver the speeds you are looking for. Keep in mind that physical distance from your wireless router decreases speed, as well as, anything between you and your device (such as walls of your house).



3.) If you can't do either of the above listed ideas then try to avoid doing internet strenuous things on multiple devices at once. Streaming a video (YouTube or Netflix for example), gaming (the Xbox), streaming music (Spotify), download large files, or similar activities eat up the most of your bandwidth. Try not to do these activities on multiple devices at once. Activities like browsing Facebook/Instagram/Twitter, accessing email, viewing basic webpages, and downloading small files are not very taxing on the internet connection.



Hope this helps! If the answer is a good answer please select best answer, its the only feedback we get.

Answer 3

The box they gave you will be a router probably with an integrated modem. This could have four Ethernet ports for wired connections to computers, games consoles, etc. You also have a fifth connection to the router - your WiFi network.



Unlike Ethernet, WiFi can only pass one packet at a time. This might be a data packet from the router to one of the wireless connected devices, or it can be an acknowledgement packet going from a device to the router. Only one wireless device can be involved with a packet transfer at any time.



In contrast, Ethernet tend to connect to just one device, and can handle data packets in one direction while acknowledgement packets are simultaneously in the opposite direction. Each Ethernet can operate at the same time, and at the same time as single packets are going across the wireless network.



Wireless networks can operate in different modes - mode B had an instantaneous speed of just 11 Mbps; mode G reaches 54 Mbps; while mode N typically goes to 150 Mbps or faster. The wireless network speed will tend to drop to the speed of the slowest wireless device that is active on the network. Wireless networks can slow up when the channel starts to be heavily used especially by several different devices. There is no formal sequencing of which device can transmit, and if two or more devices start to transmit at the same time, then their transmissions will be corrupted, and neither device will know that there is a problem until some higher level software times out and initiates a recovery. Even a neighbour's wireless network can cause packer corruption if it is on the same channel. The further apart that devices are from the router, and from each other, the higher the chance of two transmissions colliding and corrupting each other.



If you are getting some interaction from a neighbour's network, log on to the router and try setting the wireless on a different channel. Try different channels to find the best one.



I hope this explains why you can be seeing problems.

Answer 4

buy more internet speed there is really not much you can do since is a problem of oversaturation because 3 demanding things are using it. or you can try to use a program that limits the speed in each one.