As part of this article, we spoke with Supervisor: Technical Service Support, Ms Ruth Kamalanga-Mufenda, and her Technical Service Support Team, who explained the various technical and environmental factors that can impact internet speeds, as well as best practices for maintaining a reliable connection.

 1. Customers often assume there is a fault when their internet slows down. What are some of the most common reasons for slow internet speeds?

• Too many devices using the connection at the same time.
• Wi-Fi problems inside the house/premises.
• Busy periods on the network.
• Older phones or laptops connecting to the Wi-Fi.
• Applications updates downloading in the background.
• Customer’s internet needs/demand more than the customer internet subscription.
• Sharing Wi-Fi passwords by children with their friends and neighbours.

Example: Imagine driving on a highway. Even if the road is in perfect condition, traffic can still move slowly if there are too many cars, poor road signs, or a slow vehicle blocking the lane. Internet works the same way.

2. What is network congestion, and how can it affect a customer's internet experience, particularly during peak usage times?

Network congestion occurs when data traffic exceeds network’s available capacity, it is like traffic on a road. The network has a certain capacity, and when many customers use it at the same time usually in the evenings (Peak hours) between about 19:00 and 22:00 everyone gets a smaller share of that capacity, like a traffic jam and your car moves slower and slower the more cars join the road. The connection still works, but web pages / applications load slower and videos may drop to a lower quality.

Example: Road during rush hour. When there are only a few vehicles, traffic moves freely and faster. When thousands of vehicles use the same road at the same time, everyone experiences slower movement.

3. How does the number of devices on a home or office network impact internet performance?

Your internet line is shared by every device in the house or office, for example multiple phones, TVs, laptops, and cameras all pull from the same pipe. Heavy users such as video streaming, online gaming and software updates take the biggest share, and they often keep using data in the background even when nobody is actively using the device. So, the more devices are connected, the slower your connection becomes per device.

Example: Your internet connection is like a road with four lanes. If one car is driving, traffic flows easily. If 20 cars suddenly use the same road, everyone has less space and moves slower.

4. Many customers use Wi-Fi without realising its limitations. What are some factors that can affect Wi-Fi performance within a home or workplace?

Wi-Fi is wireless connectivity within the home or workplace surrounding, with performance being dependent on the internet router positioning. Several reasons, for poor Wi-Fi performance include, number and thickness of walls, interference from neighbours' Wi-Fi, microwaves, and cordless phones, using an old router, and too many devices on one frequency band. The Wi-Fi speed inside the building is always lower than the speed delivered on the line itself. The walls within a house weaken the Wi-Fi signal as it passes through the walls, so the more walls between you and the router the more you will experience slow speed.

5. How does the distance between a device and a Wi-Fi router or access point influence connection speeds?

Yes, the further you move from the router, the weaker the signal becomes and the slower the connection. When the signal gets weak, your device automatically slows down to stay connected. This is why the speed in a back bedroom is often far lower than the speed right next to the router.

6. What role do walls, furniture, and other physical obstacles play in Wi-Fi signal strength and internet performance?
Every wall or object between you and the router weakens the signal. Concrete, brick, metal, mirrors and anything holding water such as fish tanks or geysers, even people in the room can block or weaken Wi-Fi signal. The faster 5GHz band gives higher speeds but is blocked by walls more easily than the slower 2.4GHz band.

Example: It is like placing multiple roadblocks and checkpoints between you and your destination. The more obstacles there are, the slower the journey becomes.

7. How do fibre and mobile networks differ, and what factors can influence their performance?

Fibre sends light through a glass cable directly into the building, so it is fast, stable, and consistent. Mobile is wireless connectivity from a tower, shared by everyone in that area, and it is affected by how far you are from the tower, buildings in the way, and how busy the tower is at that moment. That is why mobile speed changes from place to place and from hour to hour.

Example: Fibre is like driving on a private highway with fewer interruptions. Mobile internet is like using public roads where traffic, weather, and road conditions can affect your journey.

8. Can weather conditions or environmental factors affect internet connectivity and speeds?

Fibre is mostly unaffected because the cables are underground. Mobile and wireless links can be affected by heavy rain and storms, and lightning can damage equipment. Power outages and extremely hot temperatures can also affect equipment at the customer's premises as well as on the network. Heavy rain falling between two devices that share a wireless connection can sometimes cause the connection to almost go down completely, it can be like trying to send a signal through a container of water, the water will degrade the signal same as the rain falls, which weakens the signal and causes slow speed.

Example: Heavy rain may not damage the highway itself, but it can slow traffic and cause accidents.

9. What is international traffic, and why can websites or online services hosted outside Namibia sometimes appear slower?
International traffic is data travelling to and from servers outside Namibia. When you open a site hosted in Europe or America, your request travels thousands of kilometres through undersea cables and back again, which adds delay. Sites and services hosted or cached locally will always feel faster, even on the same connection. Caches are these storage facilities that store the content we have already accessed, and this makes it easier for the next person trying to access the same content, and it then appears fast because they did not have to load the content from a server in America or China. Telecom Namibia currently has local cashes for Google, Netflix, and Facebook.

Example: It is like sending a package to another country. Even if local roads are clear, the package still has a much longer journey and might face delays at borders or busy routes.

10. To what extent does the performance of a customer's device influence their internet experience?

The device is very often the real bottleneck. Every device connected to the internet uses part of the available bandwidth. An older phone or laptop with an old Wi-Fi chip simply cannot reach modern speeds, no matter how good the line is. Full storage, too many open tabs or apps, viruses, and outdated software also slow things down noticeably.

Example: Even on a perfect highway, an old car will travel slower than a modern sports car. The road is fine, but the vehicle has limitations.

11. How can customers determine whether a slow connection is caused by their device, Wi-Fi setup, or the network itself?

Test the same website(s) on two or more different devices, whilst using the same home or work network. If only one device is slow, the device is the problem. Test across separate times of the day and night to determine if the slow connection is anytime. Test from separate locations of the house, stand right next to the router and gradually moving further away from it. If it is fast near the router but slow in another room, it is a Wi-Fi problem and the distance is too far, a repeater may need to be setup. Test with only device connected. Next, plug a laptop directly into the router with a network cable and test. Check which package you are subscribed to, by contacting customer care centre (dial 11000 or WhatsApp +264852111111). If it is slow everywhere, on every device, and on a cable, then line fault should be reported, by contacting customer care centre (dial 11000 or WhatsApp +264852111111).

Example: If one car has problems while all others drive normally, the issue is the car. If every car is stuck, the problem is the road or traffic conditions.

12. What simple troubleshooting steps can customers take before reporting a slow internet connection?

• Restart the router and the device.
• Check that the mobile data bundle or package is not depleted.
• Move closer to the router.
• Check cables.
• Use a cable, if possible, to connect a computer or TV.
• Disconnect unused devices.
• Stop downloads.
• Test another website.
• Change the Wi-Fi password and then run a speed test while standing next to the router, if its slow, then reach out for further troubleshooting.

Example: Before reporting that a car is broken, you first check the fuel, tyre pressure, and whether the engine is running properly. The same principle applies to internet troubleshooting.

13. What are some common misconceptions customers have about internet speeds and network performance?

• That unlimited package means faster internet connection, while it depends on your package.
• That having a fibre connection means faster internet connection, while it depends on your package.
• That one slow website means the entire connection is bad, which is incorrect.
• That every device gets the full advertised speed at the same time, which is not true, depending on distance from router, type of device and many other factors, devices can get different speeds. Advertised speeds are not always guaranteed everywhere and.
• That a faster package should provide Wi-Fi coverage the whole house, while the Wi-Fi coverage has to do with router, placement, house walls etc.
• That full Wi-Fi bars mean fast internet when the bars only show signal strength and not speed, Wi-Fi bars show how far you are from the router, or how much of the signal is reaching you.
• That any reduction in internet speed must be the provider's fault when the cause is very often inside the home.

14. What practical advice would you give customers to help them achieve the best possible internet experience at home or at work?

• Place the router in a central and open position not in a cupboard, on the floor, or behind a television.
• Use a network cable for TVs, desktops, and laptop connections to the router.
• Keep the Wi-Fi password strong so that outsiders can not guess the password.
• Subscribe to the right package that matches the number of people/devices using it (For ideal performance, budget 2Mbps per devices, so if you have 5 devices or more, in the house at most times, your package should be minimum 10Mbps).
• Use modern equipment (TVs, phones, laptops).
• Add access points/repeaters for large homes.
• Monitor bandwidth usage via speed test websites/ applications and schedule large downloads for late at night.

15. How is Telecom Namibia continuously investing in and improving its network to meet growing customer demand?

Telecom Namibia continues to expand its fibre footprint to more homes, businesses and towns, upgrade its mobile network, and increase international capacity so that customers get faster access to global content. Investment also goes into the core network, redundancy, meaning backup links, and backup power, so that the service remains stable and reliable as customer demand keeps growing.