The Verse - Volume 27
return

Tech Tips - Beating the Broadband Blues

Broadband Internet access has by and large replaced dial-up Internet access for most of the online world over the last five years. Broadband Internet connections feature speeds which far exceed the capacity of dial-up and prices now are what a dial-up connection cost a few years ago. The standard broadband technologies in most areas are DSL and cable modems.

Broadband speeds start at 256K (kilobits per second) which is about 5 times faster than dial-up’s speed of 56K. Most broadband packages available today have speeds of at least 1.5M (1,500K) and start as low as $12.99 per month. A good quality video streamed from CNN.com or Comedy Central takes up between 500K and 600K worth of bandwidth. Streaming audio such as the Real Rhapsody music player, which offers near CD-quality sound, uses about 128K to 256K. If you are still using a dial-up Internet connection, stop reading this article and go get a broadband package today!

OK, so you’ve got your high-speed Internet connection and you should be flying down that Internet superhighway, but instead you’re puttering along. So why is your broadband connection running slow? Keep in mind it could be your computer that is slowing down and not your broadband connection. Let’s look into some of the possible causes for your slowdown and some potential solutions.

The first thing to do is to run an online speed test. This helps to get a general idea of the current speed of your Internet connection. Some excellent web sites to use for a test are www.broadbandreports.com/stest, 2wire.com, www.bandwidthplace.com/speedtest,

www.dslreports.com or www.aroundtownkc.com/computing (click Broadband speed test). A test that I just ran on my Time Warner Roadrunner Cable Internet connection showed my speed at 4.4M. That’s fast! Comcast, Verizon, Everest, AT&T/SBC and others can offer similar speeds. If the plan you’re on is supposed to run at 1.5M and your speed test says 300K, you’ve got a problem. You probably already could tell there was a problem, but now you have a way to quantify it. Let’s dig a little deeper into what might be happening.

Believe it or not, the type of broadband access you're using could be a reason for the slowdown. If you’re using DSL, then the farther away you are from the telephone company central office, the weaker your signal will be and the slower your speed will be. That will be a constant however, so your speed will be what it is and not sporadically slower. If you're using cable Internet access you're sharing your connection with others in your neighborhood. The more people on the connection, the more the bandwidth is being used and the slower it will run.

Moving on to some of the causes outside of your Internet connection that could be slowing you down, we come to viruses, Spyware and Adware. These can infiltrate your PC and cause all kinds of problems. Find out what to do about viruses here and Spyware/Adware here.

If you tend to install and uninstall many programs, there is the chance that your computers hard drive is fragmented. Simply, the hard drive needs to search more when trying to piece together a file, etc. A file can be stored at many different locations throughout your hard drive and your computer works harder to find and put together the file you're accessing. Windows users can go to their System Tools and use a utility called Disk Defragmenter. Running this utility will tell you whether or not you need to de-fragment your hard drive and if you do, there is a button to click to begin the process.

If your problem isn’t anything we’ve covered so far, it could be a hardware problem with your computer. It could be the processor overheating, bad RAM, a failing hard disk, your BIOS settings, disk type/controller compatibility, your Windows services, runaway processes, background applications or file system issues. If that list seems confusing, it might be time to seek help from a technology professional. These are just a few things that you can check. Things like memory capacity, firewalls, proxies and modems can affect your Internet speeds.

So, if you’ve got those broadband blues, check your connection speed first. If you see that your broadband connection itself is the culprit due to bad speed tests, contact your internet service provider (ISP). If your broadband connection speed is fine, chances are the problem is with your computer. Remove any Spyware or viruses and test again. Still slow? Defragment your hard drive. After you do all that, if the problem persists you may need to seek help from a technology professional or even upgrade your computer.