Much like your heat, water, and electricity, your Internet connection is a necessary utility, especially for businesses. And while having your home Internet shut or slow down is a huge inconvenience, at work, it’s a hindrance on productivity.

The Internet is the primary business platform for a number of industries, from communications to medical, retail, food service, IT, and more. If you don’t have a decent Internet connection, how can you expect to get any work done?

If your work Internet connection is running on the slower side, you may have some unresolved technical issues to take care of. Of course, angrily Googling, “Why is my Internet so slow?”, isn’t likely to help — especially if it takes five minutes to get an answer. Here’s a quick troubleshooting guide to help identify the problem:

1. Is your router placement optimized?

   You may not know this, but other devices and even appliances like microwaves can interfere with your wireless router’s broadcast signal. If your signal is weak, your connection will be too. Be sure to position your router away from other devices that give off frequencies that may cause interference.

   Similarly, placing your router in a remote area of the office may also limit your connection. When your signal has to travel through walls and doors, it is weakened. Place your router in a more accessible, central part of the office so the network signal can travel throughout the building.

2. Power down once in a while

   Many people will leave their modems, routers, and computers on 24/7. And while this doesn’t seem to pose much of a problem at first, after a while you may notice slower Internet activity. Most of the time, shutting off your router for just ten seconds will help restore a faster connection. No need to call your Internet provider.

3. Use network Ethernet cables instead

   Wifi signals can be interrupted by interference, while Ethernet cables are far more reliable. For a home network, cat5e cables should be fine, but in a work setting, you may need something of higher capacity. Review your needs and consider purchasing bulk cat6a cable if you haven’t already.

   While you may only need a few hundred feet at a time, you do need to account for all employee computers and future needs. You also may go through them more quickly than you expect. In fact, the RJ45 plugs on the end of each Ethernet cable are only useful for about 1000 to 2000 insertions, so buying bulk cat6 cable is a good idea for planning ahead.

If you need bulk cat6 cable for your office, look no further. Cable Wholesale has cables of all grades and varieties for a fraction of the price of most other brand name cable retailers.