How to increase your internet speed

Slow internet usually isn't something you have to live with, and the fix often costs nothing. Before you pay for a faster plan, a handful of adjustments to how your connection is set up can close most of the gap between what you pay for and what you actually get. This guide walks through them in order of impact — start at the top, and test your speed before and after each change so you can see exactly what helped.

Free fixes, in order of impact

1. Use a wired Ethernet connection

For any device that stays put — a desktop, console, smart TV, or work laptop — a cable beats Wi-Fi every time. Ethernet gives that device a direct, dedicated, interference-free line, while Wi-Fi loses speed to distance, walls, and competing devices. This is the single most effective change for the devices that matter most.

2. Reposition your router

Router placement matters more than people expect. Wi-Fi radiates outward like a bubble, so a router in a corner, on the floor, or hidden in a cabinet wastes half its signal. Put it in a central, elevated, open spot, away from thick walls, metal, and other electronics. This costs nothing and can transform coverage in far rooms.

3. Use the 5 GHz band near the router

Most routers broadcast two bands. 5 GHz is much faster with less interference but shorter range; 2.4 GHz reaches farther but is slower and more crowded. Connect speed-sensitive devices to 5 GHz when they're near the router, and save 2.4 GHz for distant devices that just need coverage. Newer Wi-Fi 6E and 7 routers add a 6 GHz band with even less congestion.

4. Change your Wi-Fi channel

In a crowded area, your router may be fighting neighbors on the same channel. A free Wi-Fi analyzer app shows which channels are congested. On 2.4 GHz, the non-overlapping channels 1, 6, and 11 are best; on 5 GHz, channels like 36, 40, and 44 are reliable. Manual selection often beats the router's automatic choice.

5. Pause background bandwidth hogs

Your speed is shared. A game update, cloud backup, software auto-update, or a 4K stream on another device quietly eats bandwidth. Close or pause them — and schedule big downloads for overnight — so your active task gets the full pipe.

6. Restart your router

The classic fix works because it clears the router's memory, drops stale connections, and can reconnect to a less congested channel. Do it when speeds have crept down over time. A restart every few weeks keeps things stable; if you're rebooting constantly, that points to a deeper hardware or line problem.

Settings worth tweaking

Try faster DNS

DNS translates website names into addresses, and your provider's default DNS is sometimes slow. Switching to a public option like Cloudflare (1.1.1.1) or Google (8.8.8.8) can make websites resolve and load a little faster. It doesn't raise your actual throughput — your download speed stays the same — but browsing can feel snappier. You can change it on one device or, better, at the router so every device benefits.

Update your router firmware

Manufacturers release firmware updates that fix bugs, patch security holes, and sometimes improve performance and stability. Check your router's admin page every few months, or enable automatic updates if available. An out-of-date router can carry performance-killing bugs that an update simply removes.

QoS — helpful, but test it

Quality of Service prioritizes certain traffic (say, video calls over downloads) and can tame congestion. But there's an honest catch: QoS inspects every packet, which strains low and mid-range routers and can actually cap your speed even when there's no congestion to manage. On a modest router with few devices, QoS may be costing you speed. Enable it, test, and turn it off if your numbers drop — don't assume it always helps.

When to spend money

If you've worked through the free fixes and you're still short, hardware or your plan is the limit. In rough order:

1. A better Ethernet cable for wired devices — Cat5e handles gigabit; Cat6 adds headroom. Cheap and worth it if yours is old or damaged.
2. A newer router (Wi-Fi 6 or 7). If yours is more than 3–4 years old it's likely Wi-Fi 5 or older. On a fast plan (500+ Mbps) with many devices, a modern router lets you actually use the bandwidth you pay for. On a 100 Mbps plan, the difference is smaller.
3. A mesh system if your home has dead zones a single router can't cover. Mesh won't raise your top speed, but it delivers consistent speed to every room.
4. Replace an aging modem. A modem more than about 5 years old can bottleneck a fast plan; upgrading can unlock speed you're already paying for.
5. Upgrade your plan — last. Only worth it once you've confirmed (with a wired test) that you're already getting most of your current plan and genuinely need more. Paying for a bigger plan won't help if Wi-Fi or old hardware is the real bottleneck.

What won't help

A few popular ideas don't do what people hope. Paying for a faster plan won't fix a Wi-Fi or hardware bottleneck — the extra speed just dies at the weak link. Faster DNS speeds up name lookups, not your actual download rate. And 'internet booster' apps and devices that promise to multiply your speed are almost always ineffective. The real gains come from the physical setup — wired connections, router placement, and removing congestion — not from software shortcuts.

Confirm it worked

After each change, run a speed test and compare. Test on a wired connection to see your true line speed, and on Wi-Fi where you actually use your devices to measure the wireless link. Check ping and jitter too, not just download — for video calls and gaming, a more stable connection matters as much as a faster one. If a change didn't move your numbers, undo it and try the next; if it helped, keep it.

Related questions

More guides