Why is my fibre so slow? Common causes and quick fixes

Your movie buffers, that upload you’ve been monitoring stalls at 93%, then someone shouts, “the fibre is down!” Well, it might not be the fibre.

Sometimes slow fibre isn’t a fibre line fault; it’s the WiFi. Fibre is the connection running into your house. WiFi is the wireless signal that carries the connection around the house, from your router to the TV, laptops and everyone’s phones. Your line can be running at full speed while the signal in the bedroom at the other end of the house crawls.

The difference matters because it changes who fixes it. A line fault needs Telkom. A WiFi problem is something you can usually fix yourself.

Is it my fibre or my WiFi?

1. Plug a laptop straight into the router with an Ethernet cable.
2. Switch the laptop’s WiFi off so it can only use the cable.
3. Run the Telkom speed test.
4. Unplug the cable, switch WiFi back on, and run the same test again.

Then compare the upload speed and download speed from each on the Telkom speed test. Your results should point you towards the likely cause and tell you whether to troubleshoot your WiFi or contact Telkom.

Why is my WiFi so much slower than my cable connection?

Your line is fine, and your WiFi is the bottleneck. The fibre is delivering a good connection, but the signal is losing most of it somewhere between the router and your device.

Why is my WiFi slow in only one room?

Both tests looking healthy means you have a coverage problem. The signal is reaching the rest of the house but not that room. Start with router placement and interference.

Also run the test once during the day and once in the evening. A big gap between the two shows how busy your household is, rather than necessarily indicating a problem with your fibre line.

Why is my internet slow on both WiFi and cable?

If the cable is just as slow as the WiFi, the problem sits somewhere between your router and the fibre connection. That could be the line or the router itself. Before you go straight to logging a fault, try:

• Restarting the router and giving it two full minutes to reconnect.
• Counting how many devices are connected.
• Looking at what is physically around the router.

Some slow fibre complaints can be solved with these simple steps.

What else could be causing slow fibre at my home?

1. Your router is getting old

A router that comfortably handled two laptops and a smart TV three years ago can struggle when the same house is running two work calls, a game, a stream and a security camera at once. The fibre package is doing its job. The hardware in the middle may not be able to keep up.

How to check: if the cable test was fast and the WiFi test was slow, the router could be a likely suspect. Newer hardware, like a Telkom-approved router, can help maintain speeds better across a busy home and handle more devices.

2. Your router is in the wrong place

Routers are needy pieces of tech. Put one in a cupboard, tuck it behind the TV or push it into a corner of the house, and the WiFi signal has to travel through walls and around furniture before it reaches your devices.

Try:

• Moving it to an open, central spot in the house.
• Lifting it off the floor.
• Keeping it clear of TVs, metal shelving, mirrors and fish tanks.

Test the speed next to the router, then in the room where things slow down. If the drop is dramatic, the router’s position could be affecting your WiFi.

3. Your signal is competing with everything around it

WiFi shares the air with a surprising amount of household equipment. Microwaves, baby monitors and Bluetooth speakers share the same frequency range. You’re also competing with neighbouring networks within range in a complex or a dense suburb.

Quick check: move a device closer to the router and test again. If the speed jumps immediately, it’s likely interference or a weak signal could be the problem. From there:

• Restart the router.
• Switch to the 5GHz network if your router broadcasts more than one network name.
• Test again at a quieter time of day to confirm.

4. Too many devices are sharing the connection

Today’s home network carries streaming, gaming, cloud backups, overseas video calls, smart sensors and security cameras all at once.

Quick check: count what is connected, then pause the data-heavy items one at a time. Downloads, scheduled backups and 4K streams are the usual offenders. If speed recovers as you switch things off, the pressure is coming from inside the house.

5. There is a genuine fault on the line

Sometimes it really is the fibre, especially when:

• Cable and WiFi speeds are both far below your package speed.
• The router lights show a loss of signal rather than a working connection.
• The connection drops at the same time every day or drops entirely.
• Neighbours on the same network report the same thing.

If two or more of those apply, stop troubleshooting and log it.

How do I log a fibre fault with Telkom?

You can log a fault through the MyTelkom App or Telkom’s online self-service tools, without waiting in a call queue.

Have four things ready to speed up the process:

• Your cable speed test result and your WiFi speed test result.
• When the problem started.
• Whether it affects every device or only one.
• Whether it happens all day or only at certain times.

Start with the cable test

It takes five minutes and answers the first important question: is this a job for you or Telkom?