There’s nothing worse than paying hundreds – nay, thousands – of dollars for a Mac device and having to deal with Internet speeds that make you want to tear your hair out. You try opening a page, and before it loads, you can get up, brew a pot of coffee, and go to the loo before it actually loads. That is frustrating.
Of course, you have to make sure that it’s not your ISP that is having system-wide problems, but if your Internet speed is constantly slow, you might want to check out these easy ways to boost your Internet speed.
Boost Your Internet Speed
Get the best package from your ISP.
Some ISPs are better than others, but there is always the fact that each provider has tiered packages. If you are paying for the cheapest package, and you are not satisfied with the speed, then you ought to go for the better/best package with high speeds. Simple as that.
Every area, worldwide, has ISPs that offer premium packages. In Australia, for example, provider iiNet is rolling out the National Broadband Connection to provide faster and more reliable access to homes in the area. In the US, there are the usual suspects – Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T, to name a few. All you need to do is check out their websites or call their customer support to inquire about their higher speed packages.
Connect via Ethernet instead of WiFi.
If you’ve got a decent Internet package, and you’re still experiencing slow speeds, you might want to connect directly to the router via the Ethernet cable. It may sound silly, but doing this can boost your Internet speed considerably.
The reason? Cable has less loss than WiFi.
Experiment with the location of your WiFi router.
If you don’t have an Ethernet cable or port, or simply won’t use anything but WiFi, then you can try moving the router around. It could be that its current location is not ideal, with its signal being dampened by items around it. You might be surprised at how a simple relocation of the router can boost your Internet speed.
Lessen the frequency of Time Capsule backups.
If you use TimeMachine to back up to Time Capsule via WiFi, then this might be one reason your speed goes down. Usually, the settings allow for back ups to be made every hour. While you want backups – it’s the sensible thing to do after all – you may want to lessen the frequency so that your Internet speed won’t be adversely affected. You can use software like TimeMachineScheduler to make changing the settings easier.
Make sure your wireless connection is secure.
While you probably already have a password for your WiFi, you never know if your neighbor has figured a way around your security measures. How sure are you that your neighbors aren’t piggybacking on your connection? The surest way to protect yourself from this is to change your WiFi password. Better yet, do it regularly; and as with every password, make it one that is hard to guess.
If you don’t have a password for your WiFi, then you’re an [BLEEP]. Go set a password NOW.
5 thoughts on “Easy Ways to Boost Your Internet Speed on a Mac”
Actually, your advise is wrong on the 4th point. You can actually speed up your wireless connection by switching to a older protocol like WEP. I don’t recommend this is it’s easier to hack, but my point is your article is technically flawed.
I didn’t really mention WEP or any other protocol, but okay.
Lol… Actually, in a way you sort of did. It could be taken that your suggesting a secure connection has something to do with internet speed, and setting up ones own WIFI password means having to use WPA, whereas WEP automatically creates one.
Not that you probably don’t already know that, but there are a many who just don’t understand and/or might take it the wrong way. Of course the mere existence of password won’t make things faster, but keeping other from leeching your connections will prevent them from slowing it down.
The real problem with speed are the greedy providers who throttle, just to try and get people to pay more for upgrades. The restriction of speed is just another big scam by corporate crooks, and as long people are ignorant, it’s only going to get worse.
A how-to for people to check if their providers are throttling would be much more helpful.
You might also want to mention MoCA (media over coax) which allows one to use the coaxial cable for media distribution in a home. I live in a condo complex and the WiFi is severely limited here due the interference created from the number of WiFi networks. With MoCA being a wired solution you also increase the security of the network over wireless. If need be wireless routers or access points can be added to provide localized connection for mobile, tablets or home-automation devices through the high-speed MoCA backbone.
Thanks for the input, David.