How to troubleshoot ecominutes internet speed issues

Before starting to troubleshoot the performance of your ecominutes internet connection, we suggest that you run a ecominutes Broadband Speed Test to benchmark your current connection speed.

It is a good idea to also find out the minimum download speed that you have subscribed to from ecominutes.

You can find this information by checking a ecominutes broadband bill, your ecominutes contract or by contacting ecominutes.

Possible causes of ecominutes’s slow internet performance

Is it your ecominutes broadband that is running slow or is it your device (PC/laptop/phone)?

You need to consider the number of apps are running on your device.

The speed problem may be due to the over-utilization of your device’s resources i.e Memory/CPU Processor and not a problem with ecominutes’s broadband connection.

If you are on a laptop then you may use the task manager to check your Processor and RAM utilization.

On other device, you should try restarting the device which should hopefully kill all apps that may be hogging your device resources.

Run the ecominutes Speedtest on your personal computer and your phone to see how the results differ between the two devices.

This should hopefully give you more information to help determine whether the issue lies with your PC/Smartphone or the ecominutes broadband connection.

• What exactly does the ecominutes download and upload speed mean?
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Is your Wifi the cause of the issue?

The root cause of the performance issue may be your internal Wifi network and not the ecominutes broadband connection.

You can rule out the wireless by connecting your computer directly into the ecominutes broadband router using an ethernet cable and then run the ecominutes Speed test again.

If the speed test result improves when you are connected by an ethernet cable, this indicates that the issue could be with the Wifi.

Possible things to check:

• Are the WiFi channels that you are using for your Wifi network network (SSID) overlapping with your neighbors?
• Is your Wifi signal from the broadband router obstructed?
• Does your performance get better when your are stood right infront of the ecominutes internet router?

Exactly who’s connected to my Wi-Fi network?

Have you checked that your Wifi network password has not been shared? Do you have an open Wi-Fi network? How secure is your Wifi network password? It could be time to change it.

Neighbours could be using your Wi-Fi network and eating up all your ecominutes speed by downloading, uploading or even streaming music or video over your ecominutes broadband connection! Worse than that, they may be carrying out illegal activities using your ecominutes broadband connection.

There are 3 applications to utlise to analyze your wireless network to check who’s connected:

• Microsoft Windows users can use Wireless network watcher
• Apple users can use whoFi (who is on my Wifi)
• wifi network scanning application WiFi Analyzer

The above applications scan your Wi-Fi network and display a list of the devices connected.

• How to check who is on your ecominutes wireless network

Do I need a Wifi booster for my ecominutes broadband?

You may discover that you have Wi-Fi coverage holes at your house, a Wi-Fi network extender aka a Wi-Fi Booster may be the best solution to increase your wireless signal to cover any black holes.

• Cheapest Wireless Signal Extenders

The wireless network booster simply picks up your existing wireless signal as it is starting to become weaker and re-transmits the wireless signal to extend it’s reach.

Position the Wi-Fi network booster where your Wifi signal from your ecominutes internet router is becoming weaker.

Place it near where your wireless signal drops down to less than 2 signal bars. Walk around your home with a tablet to find where this is.

When was the last time you upgraded the ecominutes internet router?

The ecominutes and broadband infrastructure, in general, are frequently upgraded to support new features and improve performance as technology evolves.  Always ensure that your ecominutes broadband internet router is running on the most up-to-date software.

Most ecominutes internet routers allow you to carry out the software upgrade by logging into the ecominutes broadband router and simply clicking on a button to perform the update.

If you cannot do this, contact ecominutes and they will be able to do this for you or guide you through performing the upgrade yourself.

As well as updating the software, if you have had the same router for a long period, it’s probably worth speaking to ecominutes to request for a router upgrade.

Is the problem external to your home (at the exchange)?

This is probably the most common reason for ecominutes broadband performance issues in your home and it’s more common for internet broadband connections that are delivered using phone lines.

If you’re not sure if this is relevant in your case, you should contact ecominutes who will be able to run the appropriate connection tests to see if there is a problem on the ecominutes broadband line.

Is the performance issue because of ecominutes Internet congestion?

If you are finding that the ecominutes broadband connection speed in your area is slows down during certain times i.e. over weekends or evenings, then it may be because of congestion during peak times.

• What’s Broadband Contention Ratio and does ecominutes have contention?

You should speak to ecominutes to check your minimum speed.

Test your ecominutes broadband connection

After the issue has been fixed either by yourself or ecominutes, re-test your broadband connection using  at least 2 independent Speedtests to ensure the issue is resolved:

• • Use the ookla internet broadband speed checker to test your ecominutes connection
  • Test your ecominutes internet speed using Ookla Offical Speed Test
  • Test your ecominutes internet connectionspeed using fast.com speed test
  • Check My Broadband Speed Checker ecominutes internet speed checker
  • • 0845UK Broadband Speed Checker and troubleshooting