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Rural Broadband broadband Speed Checker
Click on the “Go” button on the Ookla Speed test to confirm the speed of your Rural Broadband internet connection.
Information on how to troubleshoot problems with your Rural Broadband broadband can be below.
For a more accurate reading, run the Speedtest twice
How to troubleshoot Rural Broadband broadband internet speed
Before you start troubleshooting the speed of your Rural Broadband broadband connection, you firstly need to run the Rural Broadband Internet Broadband Speed Test and also confirm the exact Upload and Download speed that you have subscribed to.
You can get this information by checking your Rural Broadband bill or contact Rural Broadband to confirm this information.
Common causes of Rural Broadband slow broadband performance
Is it your Rural Broadband broadband that is slow or is it your device (PC/laptop/phone)?
You need to consider how many apps are concurrently running on your device that could be utilising your system resources (mainly RAM memory and CPU) and/or your Rural Broadband internet bandwidth.
If you are on a PC then you may use the task manager to check your CPU and memory usage.
On any other device you should try restarting the device which should hopefully terminate all applications that may have been running in the background.
Re-run the Rural Broadband speedtest on your computer and your phone to see how the speedtest results compare between the 2 devices.
This should hopefully provide you with some information to work with in terms of whether the issue lies with your device or the Rural Broadband broadband connection.
- What exactly does the Rural Broadband download and upload speed mean?
- 5 Ways to Speed Up Your Rural Broadband Internet Speed in your area
- DNS hack to speed up internet browsing on Rural Broadband
Is your Wifi connection the problem?
The cause of the issue could be your wireless connection and not the Rural Broadband broadband internet connection.
You can rule out the Wifi network network being the cause of the issue by connecting your PC directly to the Rural Broadband broadband router using an ethernet cable and run the Rural Broadband speed checker again.
If speed is better when you are connected using an ethernet cable then this proves that the issue could be with your Wi-Fi network connection setup.
Possible things to investigate are:
- Are the WiFi channels you are using for your wireless network (SSID) overlapping with the neighbors?
- Could your Wifi signal from the router be obstructed?
- Does your performance improve when you’re stood directly in-front of the Rural Broadband broadband or wireless router?
Who is connected to my wireless network?
Have you checked that your Wifi network password has not been compromised? Do you have an open Guest Wi-Fi network?
Neighbors could be using your Wifii network and eating up all the Rural Broadband bandwidth downloading/uploading or even streaming netflix! Worse still, they could be carrying out illegal activities which will all point to your connection.
There are 2 apps that you can use to scan your Wifi network to check who’s connected:
- Windows users can use Wireless network watcher
- MAC users can use whoFi (who is on my Wifi)
Both apps will scan your wireless network and show you a list of the connected devices.
Check out this tutorial on how to use both applications
Do I need a wireless network Booster for my Rural Broadband broadband?
If you find that you have Wi-Fi black holes in your house, then a Wifi extender aka a Wi-Fi Booster is the fix to boost your signal. They are readily available online from around £15.
The wireless booster simply picks up your existing Wi-Fi network signal just as it is starting to become weak and then re-transmits the wireless signal at a more stronger rate to extend it’s reach.
Place the wireless network booster/extender where your Wifi signal from the Rural Broadband broadband router is becoming weak. Approxiametly where your wireless signal drops down to two bars. Use your mobile phone to determine where this is.
When was the last time you upgraded your Rural Broadband broadband router?
The Rural Broadband and openreach infrastructure is constantly being updates to support new features (some end user facing and others internal). Ensure that the Rural Broadband broadband router has the most up to date software.
Most Rural Broadband broadband routers will allow you to perform the software upgrade by logging on the Rural Broadband broadband router and simply clicking a button to perform the upgrade.
If you cannot do this, contact Rural Broadband and they will be able to either do this for you or talk you through how to do it depending on the Rural Broadband router model you have.
In addition to upgrading the software, if you have had the same router for a long time, it’s worth speaking to Rural Broadband to ask for a router upgrade.
Is the fault external (at the exchange)?
This is probably the most common reason for Rural Broadband broadband performance issue in your area and is more common for internet broadband connections that are delivered through phone lines.
If you are not sure if this is relevant in your case, you should contact Rural Broadband who should be able to run the relevant connection checks to see if there is a problem on the Rural Broadband internet line.
Is it due to Rural Broadband Internet congestion?
If you’re finding that the Rural Broadband internet connection speed in your area is slow during certain times i.e. over weekends and evenings, then it may be due to congestion during peak times.
- What is Broadband Contention Ratio and does Rural Broadband have contention?
- What does network latency mean?
You should contact your Rural Broadband to understand if the service you have subscribed to has a minimum speed or is a contended ‘first come first serve’ service with no minimum speed guaranteed.
Finding a better Service Provider
Re-testing your Rural Broadband internet connection
After the issue has been resolved either by yourself or Rural Broadband, retest your broadband connection using at least 2 independent speedtests such as the one here and Ookla internet speedtester to ensure the fault is resolved.
