The Frustrating Mystery of Slow Internet Speeds: A Family’s Ongoing Struggle
In early 2022, I temporarily left my family home to help a relative undergoing surgery. Upon my return five months later, I was greeted by an internet situation that left me utterly bewildered. What was once a reliable connection had devolved into a seriously sluggish experience, leading me to initially suspect there was a problem with my own device. However, after several visits from our Internet Service Provider (ISP), it became clear that the issue ran deeper.
Despite the ISP’s assurances of “moderate” speeds, the situation was anything but acceptable. While gaming and browsing on a computer provided marginally better performance, mobile devices consistently crawled along at an abysmally low download speed of just 1.8 Mbps—a speed reminiscent of the dial-up internet days.
To troubleshoot, we took several steps:
- The ISP supplied us with a brand-new modem, but connecting it yielded no improvement.
- I directly connected multiple laptops to the modem, only to find the same lamentable speeds.
- Family members visiting noted the slow download speeds impacting their work, further complicating our situation.
- Following the fifth technician’s visit last week, I was informed that a new port had been installed at the neighborhood cable box and that extensive checks of the external wiring and our home network yielded no apparent issues. The technician even dismissed the possibility of the ISP imposing any speed throttling.
For verification, I decided to take my laptop to the local library, where I experienced a dramatic increase in both download speeds and overall internet performance, leaving me even more perplexed.
Despite numerous calls to our ISP and a growing fatigue with the whole situation, switching providers isn’t an option for my family member, as the connection does not directly impact him. I’m left grappling with this frustrating conundrum or resorting to library visits whenever I need to download something significant.
Our home’s setup is straightforward: no unauthorized users, hacks, or other factors that could consume bandwidth. There was previously a T-Mobile booster connected to the modem, but that was unplugged by a technician, and unfortunately, it made no difference.
Interestingly, our internet connection was quite dependable before these recent developments. As one seasoned technician lamented, we’ve regressed to what feels like “90s dial-up speeds.”
Even more puzzling, ISP technicians have conducted speed tests that appear consistent, yet the moment any downloading, uploading, or
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