What affects my broadband speed?

All sorts of things: some you can control, some you can't.

Things you can't control

Where you live

Your broadband comes through the telephone cables from your local BT exchange. So if you live one kilometre away from it, you'll get faster broadband than someone who lives five kilometres away.

The state of your phone line

The better the phone line, the stronger the broadband signal.

Noise and interference on your phone line

Underground phone lines that run beneath motorways or large buildings suffer interference, known as 'noise'. Noise also affects older phone lines strung from telegraph poles.  The more noise you have on your line, the worse your connection.

Things you can control

The layout in your home

The closer your O2 wireless box is to your master phone socket, the better. So plug it straight into the main BT master socket using the filter and cables we supply. (Don't use extension telephone cables because they weaken the signal.)

Plug a filter into every phone socket that has telephones or other equipment attached. If you want to connect to your O2 wireless box with wires, use Ethernet cables.

Your equipment

You'll get better performance from a newer computer, and new equipment (like wires and sockets). If you're using other modems or routers, replace them with your O2 wireless box. We designed it to work with the O2 Home Broadband network.

The websites you visit

Some websites send out information slower than others. Sites hosted overseas can be slower to download than sites hosted in the UK.

When you visit

At peak times, websites that stream video can't always keep up with demand. You get something called a ‘buffering’ message. That's nothing to do with your broadband connection. It's the server that can't send out data fast enough for everyone who wants it. Give the video clip time to load up or see if you can download the file to watch later.

Shared connections

If you share your internet connection with other people in your home, you'll slow each other down. Your broadband speed has to be shared out between all the computers and equipment that are online at any one time.

 
Your software

Some internet applications slow your broadband down. You can easily find out by switching them off and testing your speed. The usual culprits are peer-to-peer and file-sharing software.

Viruses and spyware

Viruses or spyware will slow you down. Use up-to-date anti-virus or anti-spyware software to keep them out. And run a regular scan to check that nothing's in your system already.

View our interactive guide to get more support setting up and going wireless