Speed up your broadband!

John Fitzsimons looks at what you can do to get better value for money from your broadband package

There can be few things more frustrating than an iffy broadband service. My own connection has a mind of its own – it will regularly disconnect for absolutely no reason, and even when it does connect, half the time the pages take forever to load.

So how can you maximise the performance of your broadband, and get what you’re paying for!

Don’t expect the world

The first thing to remember is that while your package may advertise speeds of up to 20meg, it simply won’t be possible for everyone to enjoy that speed.

One factor that will affect the speed is how far you live from your broadband exchange – I live about as far away from mine as it’s possible to be, hence why mine is so slow.

So make sure you know exactly what to expect from your connection – one great site to have a look at is Samknows.com. Put in your phone number and postcode and it can tell you what speeds are actually realistic for where you live.

Pick your moments!

It’s all about timing. If you are trying to download and surf at the same time, obviously your speeds will be affected. Trying to connect at the same time as everyone else in your area will also affect your speeds.

If you need to do some downloading, try to schedule it when nobody else will be online, so either overnight or when you’re at work, and everything should go a lot quicker.

Plug it in!

And finally, if you are determined to get the absolute max out of your connection, it might help to plug the computer into the modem itself rather than relying on wireless. While this isn’t likely to make a huge difference, every little helps!

Of course there are plenty more ways to help improve your connection speed, so if you have any tips that are perhaps a bit more technical, be sure to share them with other lovemoney.com readers!