Troubleshooting Onwave broadband speed issues

Before starting to troubleshoot the performance of your Onwave broadband connection, we suggest that you run a Onwave Internet Speedtest to measure your current connection speed.

It is also a good idea confirm the minimum download speed that you have subscribed to from Onwave.

You can get this information by checking a Onwave broadband bill, your Onwave contract or by contacting Onwave.

Likely causes of Onwave’s slow broadband speed

Is it the Onwave internet connection that is slow or is it your device (PC/laptop/phone)?

You need to consider how many apps are running on your device.

The speed issue may be due to the over-utilisation of your device’s resources e.g RAM/memory/CPU Processor and as opposed to an issue with Onwave’s internet connection.

If you’re on a PC then you can use the task manager to check your Processor and Memory usage.

On other device, you could try rebooting the device which hopefully will shutdown all applications that may be using up your systems resources.

Run the Onwave Speed checker on your computer and your mobile phone to see how the results differ between the two devices.

This should hopefully provide you with some info to help determine if the issue lies with your PC/Smartphone or the Onwave internet connection.

• What does the Onwave download and upload speed mean?
• Who is the best Internet Service Provider in the UK?
• 5 methods to speed up your Onwave broadband speed
• Simple DNS tip to improve internet browsing speed on Onwave

Is the wireless network the issue?

The root cause of the performance problem may be your wireless as opposed to the Onwave internet connection.

You can rule out the Wifi by simply connecting your computer directly to the Onwave broadband router with an ethernet cable and then run the Onwave Speedtest again.

If the result is better when you are connected using a network cable, this proves that the issue could be with your Wifi network.

Possible things to investigate:

• Are the Wireless channels that you are using for your wireless network (SSID) overlapping with the neighbors?
• Is the Wi-Fi network signal from the internet router obstructed?
• Does the speed improve when you’re stood directly in-front of the Onwave broadband router?

Who’s connected to my wireless network?

Have you checked that your Wifi network password has not been hacked? Do you have an un-secured wireless network? How complex is your wireless network password? It could be time to change it.

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

There are three apps that you can potentially utlise to analyze your wireless network to check who’s connected:

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

The above software scan your Wifi network and show you a list of the devices connected.

• How to check who is on your Onwave Wifi network

Do I need a Wi-Fi network booster for my Onwave broadband?

You may discover that there are wireless coverage holes in your house, a wireless network extender aka a wireless Booster may be the best solution to strengthen your Wi-Fi signal to cover any black spots.

• Cheapest Wi-Fi Signal Boosters

The Wifi extender picks up your existing Wifi network signal just as it is becoming weaker and re-transmits the Wifi signal to extend it’s coverage.

Place the Wifi booster/extender where your Wifi signal from the Onwave internet router is becoming weaker.

Place it approximately where your wireless network signal drops down to less than 2 bars. Walk around your house with a mobile phone to find where this is.

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

The Onwave and broadband infrastructure, in general, are constantly updated to provide new features and improve performance as technology evolves.  Always ensure that your Onwave broadband router is running on the most up-to-date software.

Most Onwave internet routers will allow you to perform the software upgrade by logging into the Onwave broadband router and simply clicking a button to start the update.

If you cannot do this, get in touch with Onwave and they will be able to perform the upgrade for you or alternatively, guide you through the process.

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

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

This is probably the most common cause for Onwave broadband performance problems in your home and is more common for broadband connections that are delivered through phone lines.

If you are not sure if this is applicable to you, you should contact Onwave who will be able to conduct the relevant line checks to check if there is a issue on the Onwave internet connection.

Is the performance issue because of Onwave Internet congestion?

If you are finding that the Onwave broadband connection speed in your area is slow during certain periods e.g over weekends and evenings, then it may be because of congestion during peak hours.

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

You should speak to Onwave to check your guaranteed speed.

Re-testing your Onwave broadband connection

After the problem has been resolved either by yourself or Onwave, retest the broadband connection using  at least 2 separate Speedtests to ensure the problem is fixed:

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