Before buying anything, you have to know where the network is actually losing time. It is almost never where people think.
That is the whole point of this service. We regularly see businesses that have changed their router, added a repeater and then upgraded their subscription, with no result - because the real bottleneck was elsewhere: a switch limited to a tenth of its capacity, a server on a mechanical disk, or a damaged cable dragging a whole link down.
A slow network can be slow for reasons that have nothing to do with each other, and only measurement tells them apart.
First test, the one that rules out half the possibilities: speed measured over a cable, straight into the router. If it is bad, the problem is upstream - the line or the subscription - and nothing you do internally will change it.
Second test: traffic between two machines on the local network, without going through the internet. That is what reveals a limiting switch, a failing cable or a badly negotiated network card.
Third test: access to the server or the NAS. A slow share often comes from the storage itself, not from the network leading to it.
People always talk about speed, rarely about latency. Yet a video call breaking up, business software dragging on the server or a file taking an age to open often come down to latency, not speed. Upgrading the subscription changes nothing - it is the most expensive mistake we come across on this subject.
An appreciable share of the gains comes from settings, not purchases. Moving the router, separating the Wi-Fi bands, changing channel, shifting backups outside working hours, replacing a suspect cable, wiring up anything that never moves, disabling useless services on the machines.
We always start there, and it is not unusual for that to be enough.
When the measurements point to them, in this order of value: replacing a limiting switch, moving the server or NAS to fast storage, a properly placed Wi-Fi access point rather than a repeater, and finally cabling the fixed machines.
What we will not propose: upgrading the internet subscription while a cabled measurement shows the current speed is not being reached. Yet that is the first thing many people do.
Many saturation problems are not structural at all: they are a matter of timing. A backup starting at 2pm, a cloud sync pushing several gigabytes up in the middle of the day, updates downloading on every machine at once on a Monday morning.
Shifting those tasks outside working hours costs nothing and sometimes frees up most of the missing bandwidth. It is the first thing we look at in the report, before proposing any equipment.
A short report with the measurements taken, identification of the limiting point or points, the corrections that can be applied immediately and those requiring investment, in order of priority. Each point states the expected gain - a figure, not a promise.
One last case deserves ruling out before blaming the network: the machine itself. A computer whose disk is dying, whose memory is full or which is overheating will give the impression of a slow network when the link is perfect.
The test is immediate: if only one machine is slow while the others are fine, the network has nothing to do with it. See our articles on a slow computer and SSD or hard drive.
The same approach applies at home, particularly for working remotely and for video calls. See our articles on slow internet despite fiber and Wi-Fi dropping out, along with our Wi-Fi setup page.
Not before measuring. If the speed obtained over a cable is already close to what you pay for, upgrading will change nothing: the problem is internal.
Yes, and it is common. A damaged pair drags a link down without cutting it, which makes the symptom hard to place without a test.
Half a day for an organization of ordinary size, measurements and report included. The free corrections are often made straight afterwards.
That is generally a matter of latency or occasional saturation, not of speed. The two are measured separately and corrected differently.
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