Why is your home internet so slow? Here are all the answers!

Often when you surf the Internet at home, you will find that even though you have installed a 50M optical fiber, why is the Internet speed still so slow? What is the reason? This kind of thing happens to almost everyone.

So today we need to popularize the science of "why the Internet speed is slow". Let's take a look.

1. How does your home broadband access the Internet?

If we compare surfing the Internet to tap water supply, the whole process is nothing more than composed of three parts: water source, water supply pipes and teapot.

The water source is the Internet website you visit, the water supply pipe is the operator's network, and the teapot is your home computer, tablet and other Internet devices.

It is actually a very complicated process for water to flow into your teapot. Broadband network is an extremely complex end-to-end system. When you sit at home and surf the Internet, data has to flow through multiple network nodes before it reaches your computer or mobile phone, as shown in the following figure:

The blue and red paths in the picture are exactly where the data goes when you visit an Internet website.

First, the website you visit is hosted in the operator's IDC computer room.

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The data of visiting websites is transmitted from the national backbone network of the operator to the provincial backbone network. If the website you visit is hosted in the IDC room of another operator, an interconnection link between operators is also required.

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▲Core network router

After multiple hops of forwarding by core network routers of various national backbone networks, provincial backbone networks, and municipal metropolitan area networks, the data is then forwarded to the OLT of the access network through SR/BRAS...

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▲OLT equipment

It is then connected to the ONU through an optical splitter, and then to a WiFi router. The WiFi wireless network then transmits the data to your computer, tablet or mobile phone.

Now you can finally access the Internet. Behind this is not only the countless communication devices in the network, but also a group of hardworking communication maintenance engineers...

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Now, based on the path of water flow, let’s look at what affects your internet speed.

Simply put, the factors that affect users' Internet speed mainly involve three links: user end, network, and website. Problems in any link may cause Internet access problems.

2. Slow Internet speed caused by user-side problems

The user end refers to the section from the WiFi router to computers, tablets, mobile phones and other Internet access devices. According to user complaints, more than 90% of complaints about "slow Internet speed" are caused by user-end issues.

Broadband operators are like water companies, they deliver water to your home, and WiFi routers are like the internal water pipes in your home that connect to faucets, showers, etc. Unlike water companies, even if there is a problem with the "internal pipes" in your home, the operator's maintenance engineers will try their best to help you repair it, but that's all they can do. If there is a problem with the quality of your faucets, showers, etc., they can't do anything, and you need to replace them with better quality equipment.

These issues mainly include:

• The terminal Internet access device hardware is old and has low performance. If the computer network card has poor performance and insufficient memory, the maximum network speed will not be achieved. For example, if the broadband is upgraded to 200M, but the computer network card is still 10-100M, the network speed will certainly not meet the standard.
• Terminal device software problems, such as too many browser plug-ins, computer virus infection, Trojans, etc., will affect Internet speed.
• Improper configuration, such as incorrect DNS configuration, may cause slow Internet access due to cross-operator and cross-region access. This often happens after users change operators. The correct way is to use the DNS address of the local operator on the computer or router. If you don't know the DNS address of the local operator, you can use automatic DNS acquisition or call the broadband customer service hotline for consultation.
• Cable problems, such as network cables or crystal plugs are damaged, aged, or of poor quality.
• WiFi Router Problems

WiFi router problems are a common cause of slow Internet speeds. Here are some suggestions on how to make your WiFi run well and increase your Internet speed:

(1) Select the correct installation location

If your home WiFi is too slow, don’t get excited. Take a deep breath and look up at your light bulbs. If you want every corner of your room to be illuminated, where would you install the light bulbs?

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Wi-Fi is like a light bulb: if you want better coverage and faster speeds, install it in a better location if possible.

This is a diagram of the propagation path of WiFi signals...

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You can see that the WiFi signal not only suffers from reflection from the wall, but also becomes weaker and weaker due to being blocked by the wall or other obstacles. The coverage blind spots where the indoor signal cannot reach are also clearly visible.

So, if you want fast Internet access, especially to enjoy high-definition IPTV, please give your WiFi router a little more privilege, just like you just bought a beautiful painting and hang it in the most conspicuous place in the living room instead of putting it in a corner or hiding it in a closet.

In addition, WiFi uses radio waves to work. Any electronic device that may emit radio waves may interfere with your WiFi connection, such as TVs, microwave ovens, cordless phones, etc. Please keep your WiFi router as far away from these devices as possible.

(2) Choose a WiFi router appropriately

As I said earlier, to get high-speed Internet access, you should pay attention to your home WiFi router, which includes choosing a better quality device.

According to statistics, more than 80% of users use WiFi routers priced below 100 yuan, and the failure rate of routers at this price is generally above 15%, while the failure rate of routers priced above 100 yuan is much lower, below 10%.

When purchasing a WiFi router, please also look for the WiFi protocol it supports. Different WiFi protocols support different maximum network speeds. Please refer to the following table:

In addition, compared to 2.4GHz, routers that support 5GHz usually have higher speeds but shorter coverage distances; more MIMO technologies can support faster speeds.

Nowadays, the Internet has become an indispensable part of people's daily life like water and electricity. Just like you usually choose better quality water pipes and wires when decorating your home, you should choose better quality routers and install them in a more reasonable location. We believe that the "internal water pipes" in the Internet era should also be worthy of attention.

3. Network problems cause slow Internet access

The network part refers to the part from the ONU to the operator's IDC room. Common reasons are as follows:

(1) ONU optical power does not meet the standard and other reasons

The ONU receiving optical power range is -8dBm~-24dBm. If it exceeds this range, the device will be unable to go online.

The OLT is connected to the ONU through optical fiber, splitter, fusion splice and other equipment. The splitter loss, fusion splice loss, optical fiber transmission loss, etc. will affect the received optical power of the ONU. When the received optical power of the ONU is less than -24dBm, maintenance personnel usually check whether the ONU optical fiber head is damaged, whether the household optical fiber is damaged, and whether the ONU hardware is faulty.

Therefore, please note the following after fiber optic access:

• Do not bend or twist the optical fiber. The curvature radius of the optical fiber cannot be less than 4cm, otherwise the attenuation will be too great, affecting the Internet speed and even making it impossible to connect to the network.
• Pay attention to the ventilation, moisture-proof and drop prevention of the optical modem. The operating environment temperature cannot be higher than 45 degrees. It is recommended to avoid high-power electrical equipment such as refrigerators, air conditioners, etc. to avoid interfering with the normal operation of the optical modem equipment.
• If you cannot access the Internet, please first check whether the POWER indicator of the optical modem is always on, confirm whether the power switch of the optical modem is turned on, and whether the power cord is connected. When the LINK /LOS light (link status indicator) is not on, it can be judged that the optical path of the operator's network is faulty.

(2) Network congestion, insufficient equipment processing capacity, etc.

This includes exceeding the limit of users connected to the PON port, excessive uplink bandwidth utilization of OLT equipment and PTN ring network utilization (over 70%), which cause traffic congestion, packet loss, and a decrease in network speed. The main manifestation is that the network speed is faster during the daytime, but during the busy evening, when the number of users accessing the Internet at the same time in the community increases, the network speed drops significantly. For this reason, operators usually choose to expand capacity to solve the problem.

(3) Reasons such as interconnection, caching, CDN, and IDC

The operator's network is the pipeline to the servers of Internet companies (such as Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, etc.). The servers are hosted in the operator's IDC room. If the IDC room of operator A introduces XXX website, and you use the broadband of operator B at home, now if you want to visit XXX website, the network of operator A and operator B needs to be interconnected. At the same time, operator B has to pay the network settlement fee to operator A. Operator B will definitely feel very unhappy to be controlled by others.

The insufficient IDC export bandwidth between operators involved will also lead to slow Internet access speed for users.

Therefore, the strategy adopted by operator B is to vigorously build IDC and introduce Internet content, with the goal of improving users' Internet access speed and perception.

In addition, the basic principle of CDN (Content Distribution Network) is to sink popular content resources to the place closest to the user, saving the transmission bandwidth of the backbone network and core network, so that users can obtain the required content nearby and improve the access rate. CDN is an indispensable application infrastructure in the video era and IPTV+ broadband strategy, and plays an important role in improving user perception.

4. Website Issues

Website problems include: insufficient access bandwidth to the website itself, insufficient server processing power, unreasonable website page design, and too many page plug-ins.

Operators connect websites or servers based on the access bandwidth of Internet companies. Like a water pipe, the access bandwidth determines the water output speed. If the access bandwidth is too low and a large number of users flock in, the Internet speed you feel will decrease. At the same time, insufficient server processing power will also lead to slow response speed, affecting the Internet perception.