Social distancing may be slowing your home Wi-Fi

ALTAMONTE SPRINGS, Fla. - As homes everywhere lock down to slow the spread of COVID-19 and living rooms become an entertainment space, classroom and office all at once, experts say don’t expect your home Wi-Fi to perform at its peak.

Experts at Ookla, the company behind internet speed testing site speedtest.net, say they’ve seen larger numbers of users than ever before trying to troubleshoot connection issues during the past week, a week that’s seen people across the world staying home to slow the spread of the pandemic.

"Last Monday was a new record and then every single day last week was a new record,” said Doug Suttles, CEO and Co-Founder of Ookla.

It’s not hard to see why. While internet usage is a constant, many families and households are doing all of their internet use on their home network constantly rather than at work or at school.

An online video-meeting is likely contending with online schoolwork and video streaming is taking place on other devices in the house at the same time.

"All the traffic landing in people's homes and the world of fixed broadband,” Suttles said.

Local internet service providers say they’re not worried about having the bandwidth to cover all of the social distancing use.

A spokesperson for Spectrum cable said Tuesday that their network is designed to exceed the demand being put on it.

It appears there has been some excess demand too with AT&T representatives reporting record-breaking data use over the last weekend.

However, performance on those home networks could be a different story.

"You know the peak period, typically at most places for home is in the evenings when the kids get home, parents get home, start using the internet more. It's way more than that and it's all the time,” Suttles said.

Suttles said there may be one lifeline for families struggling to share their bandwidth though: Mobile data. The Ookla CEO said troubleshooting of mobile data connections has dropped significantly since social distancing became the norm and connection speeds through cellular data networks appear to have a much clearer path as most have their devices automatically connect to their home Wi-Fi when at home.

In other words: If your home Wi-Fi clogs, try tethering to your phone.