Is Your Internet Speed Ripping You Off For Money & Productivity?


We all know far too well about upload and download processes. No matter what we are doing online, we are uploading or downloading something from the internet. Sending an email, posting a video, or even publishing this post, will require the internet to make it work. Is your speed affecting how well you can do it? It's so simple to use an internet speed test

You don't have to work online to make sense of all of this either. For me, I am online constantly. I have one device dedicated to working, one that is for personal use and more work, an iPad for gaming, and my trusty old computer that gets more than its fair share of connection time. Even my kids, that don't think about work at all know all about our internet speed. They are constantly streaming, gaming, updating, uploading videos, and of course, the constant messaging. Holy cow the messaging!

With all of that going on in our house, we need to know about our speed. I know we aren't the only ones so hopefully, this post will help you as much as it helped me! So, the question here is, what is a good speed? It's recommended that a speed of at least 12 megabits per second (Mbps) is needed to browse the internet comfortably. For us, that would be a dream come true! I am currently at 2.63Mbps download and 0.63 upload speed. Not only is it 1/3 of what I pay for and I complain about it every day. I have been uploading a video to youtube for 7 hours and I am only up to 24%. I'm actually getting ready to leave so I can just use my cell phone to do it because my home internet is so bad.

There are so many questions that go along with knowing the best way to get the best speeds out of your service. Don't overload the router. That's the big one for us. Since we did have four teenagers here at one time plus my working and gaming, my husband's gaming and streaming, we chose to have 2 routers here. That gave me a phone line for my office and a router for the grown-ups and the regular house line that gave us a router for the kids. In theory, that's a great idea, right? The kids can have their own service line, I won't have to kick them off their devices to be able to work- Great! Peace in the valley.

Just to be clear about it, it didn't work. What our internet speed is combined from both routers doesn't equal what we are supposed to be getting on one line. There are two main factors of why our internet is so slow.

The area we live in. We live in a very rural mountainous area. We don't even have a cell signal at home. That's why I go to town to upload from my phone. My cell service is great about 10 minutes from my house. The other reason, our internet provider is slacking. I have written posts about my internet providers' customer service, they have turned me into one of THOSE ladies. The kind of lady that calls with complaints every few weeks because I can't take it anymore. They tell me they are sending out a technician and either the tech doesn't come or they say they have fixed the problem and we are good to go. That hasn't been true yet.

So with all of that ranting, how do you know when you should do something about it?

The first thing, check your internet speed. You can use a speed checker to find out if it is the internet service itself or if there is another problem. Doing a Speedcheck is very easy, you go to Speed Check and click the start test button. It runs a free test on your line to tell you what your speed is. The best way to check your speed is to make sure you don't have other tabs open on your device. The test takes less than a minute to run and is a good source of information.

When you have the result of your speed check you can compare it to your bill. If you are not getting what you are paying for call the company and ask them to assess the situation. It could be something simple like a connection. I didn't know until about a year of fighting with my service provider that by law, they only have to provide 1/3 of what the package says when they say "Up To" on their service provided. We're supposed to be getting Up To 6Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload speed. So, when we are getting 2Mbps download speed and 1 Mbps upload speed, we are in the range of the service they provide. I am here to tell you, that is bad internet speed and I waste more time waiting for pages to load and videos to upload than anything else. I feel like I am getting completely ripped off. In situations like this, if your provider cannot improve the speed, it could be worth looking at the best rural internet providers in your area, and seeing if they can offer you a better service.

If you have older or heavily used devices, you can run a test on them checking for viruses and other things that might be slowing you down. You should be able to fix it yourself with a clean-up or bring it into the shop and they can do it for you. There are several self-help guides out there for fixing your slow processing speed.

If your internet speed is the problem, check around with neighbors and friends to see what service they have and how it works for them. This is a great way to know for sure if the company that you want to work with is available. That is how we found our satellite provider, infinity dish. Not all providers are able to provide the services they are selling for the area they are providing them for. Our provider has great reviews in the city and more populated areas but in our rural area, they can't do it. There are a few kinds of internet providers, that will give you the options you need to be more productive at home and save money.

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