With the advent of the world of streaming, we have grown addicted to bingeing our favorite shows and movies in the comfort of our homes. There’s perhaps nothing better these days than getting home in the night, turning on your Netflix and resuming your favorite show from where you left it last night with a hefty bowl of popcorn and soda by your side. 

However, one of the biggest nuisances that continue to spoil the user’s whole streaming experience is internet speed. [Slow internet speeds](https://www.howtogeek.com/341538/why-is-my-internet-so-slow/) are like every streamer’s Achilles heel, stopping them from achieving the best value out of their subscriptions. 

Even many avid streamers don’t actually know that Netflix has pre-defined slabs on the types of viewing qualities it can afford you based on your internet speed. So irrespective of whether you have a subscription which has HD or 4K viewing qualities, you won’t be able to watch your content in such video quality unless you have the required internet speed coming through your connection.

And let’s face it, modern day ISPs don’t actually match the advertised speeds they make you pay for. Therefore it’s high time that you take matters into your own hands and learn how to get better speeds so as not to let the video quality afforded to you by Netflix via your subscription plans. 

It’s not that hard either! Routers, modems and fiber optic cables may look intimidating to all those non-techies out there, but you don’t have to dabble with them much to get a better internet speed. 

Let’s go through the ways on how you can actually spike those bars up on your internet speed and get an exceptional video quality and view your favorite TV shows just like you’re supposed to: 

<h2>Get a VPN to Bypass your ISPs Internet Throttling: </h2>

Most people believe that getting a VPN to go over your internet connection slows down your internet speeds. Yes, that’s true as a VPN enabled connection does have some speed loss due to all the encryption, IP routing and all the other factors involved. But in some cases, VPNs can actually improve your overall internet speeds by way of allowing you to bypass your ISP’s attempts to put a cap on what speeds you get.

ISPs have a system to manage and most times, to manage the flow of traffic better, they impose or force speed caps so that everyone on the network can get equal bandwidth. And mostly, the victims of these forced data caps are the streamers because this activity tends to take up a lot of bandwidth. 

A VPN secures your internet connection and makes it almost impossible for any mechanisms to know what’s inside your data packets, so if your ISP cannot monitor your activities, its systems won’t be able to put a throttle on your connection. A senior CEO working in the industry conducted an experiment to confirm this and he saw his speeds shot up tenfold when he turned on the VPN over his Verizon connection! 

A VPN is your best, safest and only bet to undermine the powers of these throttles and enjoy the best speeds. 

<h2>Move your Router: </h2>

We might not see the Internet connection rays but when your router is turned on, they are everywhere. And just like any other object, interference in the path of the connection can bring your internet speeds down quite easily.
For e.g. if you’ve placed your router in the living room and you are watching Netflix in your bedroom, your internet rays would have to pass through doors, walls and all kinds of other stuff before landing up on your device to power your streaming. 

Routers need to be placed as close to the device you are trying to stream on, as possible. Just changing your router position even slightly can do wonders for your internet speed. 

If you want to check whether the location of the router is actually slowing your speeds down, then you can run a speed test on a site like [speedmeter.pk](http://www.speedmeter.pk/) or others before you move your router and after you move your router. Surely, you will find a major discrepancy between both the results and that will convince you to move your router as close as it physically can, to your device. 

<h2>Close Down your Other Devices: </h2>

Modern day apps and software might seem like they are just there on your phone or laptop, sitting idle, doing nothing. But in reality, most of these apps and software are always going through one program update or another. If not that, they even continue to work even if the device is not in use and the notifications are even turned on.

Those chunks of data they are consuming at that time is sometimes critically affecting your internet speeds, so it’s best that you at least turn off their internet connection when not in use at all. 

<h2>Learning About Your Network’s Peak Times: </h2>

On a shared internet network, exactly like those that we are part of through courtesy of signing up with our ISPs, internet speeds can go up wildly or tether down miserably depending on how much load there is on the overall bandwidth available on that system. 

Peak times, in this sense, are periods on which the load on the system is the greatest and no matter what you do, your speeds will remain slow until the load eases up. 

Studying the patterns in your system by conducting speed tests through online tools at various times of the day can allow you to understand when it’s the best time to get the fastest speeds for streaming and when you should be getting grainy, pathetic video quality. 

<h2>Conclusion: </h2>

Whether you are watching Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime or even your latest UFC draw via streaming, you need to understand that speed is the defining factor towards making or breaking your whole viewing experience. Things can go awry even with the slightest bit of disruptions and the best speeds require everything to come together and work properly. 

So treat all possible caveats in your internet connection with equal caution, try to identify the root cause and then work towards finding a plausible solution towards optimizing your internet speeds at their best, root capabilities.