Virgin Media has issued important advice and ignoring it could break your broadband speeds.
Faster and better broadband is now vital for modern life and it seems a simple mistake some homes are making could be hampering those all-important downloads. Anyone who is tempted to turn off the Wi-Fi before heading to bed will be doing much more harm than good. That’s the latest alert from Virgin Media who says it’s vital to keep that flashing black box online 24 hours day.
“Don’t switch your Hub off overnight,” warned Gareth Lister, Virgin Media O2’s Director of Connectivity.
And it’s not just Virgin dishing out this warning with other providers such as BT and Sky also offering similar advice.
So what happens when you hit that power button and why is it such a bad idea?
Firstly, with the router offline it won’t receive vital updates that are always pushed out overnight. These can fix a whole swathe of issues along with making sure the Wi-Fi is running to its full potential.
To help avoid disruption, these upgrades are delivered in the early hours of the morning and if the router is off that won’t happen.
Another reason that it’s important to keep things up and running is that contstbatly switching things off and on again can give your Internet Service Provider (ISP) the impression that something is wrong with the line.
Once that alert is raised, emergency speed restrictions can be put in place to make sure the internet keeps flowing. That means although your broadband is running perfectly, you’ll start getting much less impressive downloads.
It seems the issue of switching off the router is bigger than you might think. According to new research from Virgin, around 18 percent of UK users say they turn this off before getting their nightly shuteye.
“Nearly 1 in 5 broadband users break the golden rule by switching their Hub off overnight,” Virgin revealed.
“This can hamper their experience as it prevents any overnight software updates that happen overnight and can lead to broadband lags.”
Keeping your router turned on is vital to keep things up to speed but there are plenty of other ways to make sure the signal around your home stays strong.
It’s also vital to keep your router out in the open, as high up off the floor as possible and away from other electronic devices such as baby monitors and telephones.
Wi-Fi also hates things such as fish tanks and the microwave won’t do it any favours either.
Popping it away in a cupboard can kill those downloads, placing it in direct sunlight can make things overheat and it’s a good idea to give your router a reboot once a month to clear any issues. Just tap the off button, leave it for a minute then switch things back on again.
It’s also a good idea to run a wired test (via the ethernet port on the router) and then a wireless speed test (via your Wi-Fi) to see if your broadband is bad our your Wi-Fi is being disrupted.
And remember, leave that flashing black box on overnight.
