September is very good at exposing internet problems.

The laptop comes back out. Homework starts again.

Video calls return.

Someone is streaming upstairs.

Someone else is downloading an update the size of a small country.

And suddenly the broadband that seemed perfectly fine in August feels like it is running through treacle.

Before you upgrade your package or start blaming your provider, work out where the slowdown actually is.

Usually it is one of three things:

• the broadband coming into the house
• the Wi-Fi carrying it around the house
• one device having a bad day
•  

Here is the quickest way to tell which one.

First, stand next to the router

Run a speed test on a phone or laptop in the same room as the router.

If possible, stop anything else hammering the connection first streaming, game downloads, cloud backups and the teenager downloading 84GB of something “important” all count.

Even better, plug a laptop directly into the router with a network cable.

That wired result gives you a much cleaner idea of what the broadband line itself is doing.

Do the test a few times.

Try once when the house is quiet and again when everybody is online.

One bad result proves very little.

A pattern is useful.

If it is slow beside the router

Now the broadband line itself starts looking suspicious.

Check your provider’s service-status page.

If there is no obvious outage, contact them with the test results.

Saying:

“The wired speed beside the router drops to this level every evening”

is far more useful than:

“The Wi-Fi is rubbish.”

If the router is fine but upstairs is awful

Congratulations.

Your broadband may be innocent.

The problem is probably the Wi-Fi signal inside the house.

Thick walls, awkward layouts, several floors and routers hidden behind televisions or shoved into cupboards can all make a perfectly decent broadband connection feel terrible.

Walk around the house with the same device and test a few rooms.

If it is fast beside the router and dreadful in the spare bedroom, that tells you far more than another broadband advert promising “up to” something enormous.

Moving the router somewhere more open can help.

A mesh system or extender can help too.

But test first, buy gadgets second.

Otherwise you may spend £150 fixing a problem you never had.

Then blame the laptop

If one device struggles while everything else works normally in the same room, the internet probably is not the main problem.

Restart it.

Check for updates.

Try another browser.

And check whether the device itself is doing something enormous in the background.

Phones uploading thousands of photos, computers updating and TVs streaming in high definition can all make a household suddenly feel slower.

Which is why September can expose a problem that summer never did.

The connection did not necessarily get worse.

Your household may simply be asking it to do a lot more.

Check what your actual address can get

This matters more than postcode averages.

Two houses on the same street can have different broadband options.

Use Ofcom’s address-level checker, then compare that with what providers actually offer at your full address.

Availability needs checking at property level rather than from a county-wide headline.

And remember:

an address checker tells you what can reach the house.

It cannot tell you whether the Wi-Fi will survive the journey from the hallway to the back bedroom.

When should you call the provider?

Once you have:

• tested beside the router
• tried another device
• checked more than once
• ruled out an obvious Wi-Fi dead spot
•  

Then call.

Keep the speeds, dates and times.

Ask what minimum speed applies to your package and whether they can see a fault on the line.

The bit that can save you money

Do not pay for a faster broadband package until you know the broadband itself is actually slow.

If the wired connection is healthy, a more expensive package may give you exactly the same miserable signal upstairs.

Just with a bigger direct debit.

So before upgrading anything, work out which of these is guilty:

the line, the Wi-Fi or the device.

Then spend money on the right problem.

Which room in your house has the worst signal? There is always one.