Internet Speed

I’m sure you’ll agree with me there’s nothing worse than when the web grinds to a halt. This can have a big impact if your IT services are running in the cloud.

In this article we’re going to outline 3 of the top technical tips your IT provider should be offering when managing your office’s internal network.

Number 1) Your wifi bandwidth allocation.

Most modern day wifi access points and devices allow for the bandwidth to be restricted. This is particularly useful if you have a guest wifi network or a number of users who might be viewing streaming sites like Netflix/Youtube during their lunch break.

If you’ve got a completely unrestricted wifi network you’ll find it might only take one user on their phone to jam up the entire office internet whilst catching up with a Netflix episode.

It’s good practice to restrict “client bandwidth” on all devices. This basically means that each device on the wifi network is allocated a certain amount of bandwidth so they can’t eat up the entire allocation for the whole office.

Number 2) What’s your DNS?

This is a technical tip but again will work wonders when loading web pages. Make sure your current IT provider has your internet router pointed at a fast DNS service.

What exactly is DNS (domain name system)? Well any time you type a website address in your internet browser the browser then needs to go look up the DNS record for this website. Each website has a dedicated IP address the DNS converts website addresses to IP addresses. It’s a bit like looking up someone’s name in the phone book to get their telephone number.

This process can take some time depending on where your DNS is set to. By default most IT and network companies will set your DNS to the internet service provider’s DNS server.

However there are much faster and more reliable free services such cloudflare & Google DNS to name a couple.

Number 3) Patch your browser

If you’ve signed up for a managed IT service more than likely this is taken care of but can sometimes be missed.

Make sure your internet browser is patched and up to date.

Now we won’t get into a discussion here on which browser is the fastest – this I believe is personal preference but make sure it’s patched and up-to-date whatever browser you have.

Here’s the top 3 browsers (in no particular order)

• Google Chrome
• Mozilla Firefox
• Microsoft Edge

Having a patched and up to date internet browser will not only guarantee your computer is running at full efficiency when browsing the web it will also keep you secure which is an added bonus. With current cyber security risks it’s worth checking to see if your browser is indeed up-to-date.