Nothing could be more annoying than coming home to continue your online activity, only to find out that your speed is lagging. If you notice, you'll see that mostly this lag happens at night. As everyone starts to use the internet, it leads to network congestion. This is the main culprit of your internet slowing down at night.
During the nighttime, when you have planned to watch your favorite movie or a web series on Netflix, things can go wrong. For example, your internet speed may slow down aggressively. And, it leaves you with minimum bandwidth to conduct even basic online activities like scrolling social media. There could be a lot of reasons why your internet speed may slow down at night starting from network congestion, poor weather condition, slow VPN, to hardware problems. However, it's important to know the reasons and find a solution accordingly to avoid such issues in near future.
Keep on reading this article to find out why your internet speed has slowed down at night. And what could be possible ways to avoid this slow internet speed at night.
The internet peak hours start between 6 pm to 11 pm, especially on weekdays. Around this time, most people quit their daily work and get some free time to browse the internet. Now, these peak hours can vary depending on the location. For example, in the USA the peak hours start in the daytime as most people spend their time online working or studying from their homes. These times are called the internet rush hour.
During rush hour, you may experience slow internet as your internet service providers aren't able to manage a large number of people online, sharing the same bandwidth. You may need to switch to a different provider or upgrade your network plan to resolve this issue quickly. However, there are a few other reasons why your internet may slow down at night.
Network congestion is one of the common reasons behind the internet slowing down, especially at night. Due to this, you may even have fast internet with a high bandwidth limit. But you won't be able to utilize it at the most. This problem occurs because each internet network service provider has only a finite amount of bandwidth that it can support. If there are too many people using the internet at the same time, then it results in poor latency.
Especially if people are using the internet to download games, stream a movie, or conduct activities that require high internet speeds, then it increases the congestion more rapidly. To mitigate this network congestion, some providers throttle the speed, place data caps on their plans, or temporarily disconnect all their networks. It makes thing worse for their users. In such cases, you won't be able to conduct any online activity at all whether it is scrolling social media or hosting your favorite movie.
Now, internet congestion can be of two types. One is wide area network congestion or WAN which happens due to your internet service provider. And another is local network congestion which may happen due to hardware issues. For example, if there are 8 to 10 people sharing the same router in your home and conducting high-end activities like downloading games, and streaming Netflix. Then not only your bandwidth limit get reduced but also, your device will likely get overloaded.
This is the reason why you may face a lag on your computer. However, this problem could be easier to diagnose as this may not occur only at night time but also in the day time. So, you can be able to fix the issues at the earliest.
A VPN basically helps to add layers of encryption to the connection between the servers and your device. You can browse the internet without even disclosing your IP address which can be vulnerable. Many offices require a VPN to access their company website. In such cases, if a server becomes congested at night times, you may experience a slowdown.
This occurs especially when you use free VPN software which we generally don't recommend. However, it may happen with the paid VPN software too in case their servers are overloaded. But, switching to a different location may help you improve your internet speed if it gets slowed down at night due to server congestion.
It can be a common question that crosses your mind what you will do to improve your internet speed if gets slowed down at night? After all, you work all through the day and want some relaxation at night. If your internet is stuck, it means no movie hosting, or binge-watching Netflix anymore. So, what can you do to avoid the slow-down issues that especially occur at night?
Well, take a look at some of the possible solutions here:
1. Use 5GHz Wi-Fi Band
If you have a dual-band router that offers both 2.4GHz and 5GHz, then you will be able to choose your band anytime you want. Generally, the 2.4GHz band can support a speed of up to 600Mbps but it covers a wide area. Hence, this network stays congested during the night time, resulting in loss of connectivity or slower speeds.
Alternatively, the 5GHz band supports up to 1300Mbps but it only covers a limited area which is why the crowd stays to a minimum number. So, with 5GHz, you can easily see speed improvements even at night times as you can evade network congestion.
2. Choose A Fiber Or Cable ISP
Well, there's no doubt that all types of the internet can face network congestion, but with cable and fiber internet, it's pretty rare. And, even if it does, it's not so severe that you won't be able to conduct your basic online activities. Therefore, switching to an internet service provider that offers fiber or cable internet would be ideal in such cases as these cable networks can carry more data than any DSL or satellite connection.
3. Switch To A Premium Plan
If you're constantly facing slow down at night times, then it's probably the best decision to switch to a premium plan offered by your internet service provider. Usually, a premium plan means it will offer faster data speed even at peak hours. However, you must conduct a speed test to know whether the slow down occurring at night time is due to your network issues or your hardware issues before switching to a premium plan.
Network congestion during the night times is pretty frustrating. It can not only hamper your important work but ruin your best plans. But, it's pretty common with an average internet service plan. Fortunately, it's easier to evade network congestion by following the steps we've mentioned above. There are a few internet service providers that offer you unlimited data plans so you won't have to worry about any slowdown that will occur at the night. We hope this guide has helped you improve your internet speed. If so, don't forget to let us know.
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