My internet slows down around holidays. During this whole day it has been slow as fuck, websites refused to work properly.
What could I do to troubleshooting it?
Is it possible somebody is stealing my net?


My mum pay the bills, so I will need to talk to her about changing the network provider which I plan to do soon.

i'm in like the same area as u, recently my connection speed is dropping and making it hard to watch multiple streams, they end up buffering but watching 1 is fine

i did speed test on google to see how fast it's going every now & then
could try restarting the modem/router, unplug from wall, wait few minutes, plug in, basic troubleshoot
i know a command prompt commands kinda see if u get packloss & response, type in ping then a website address(gog.com)

thats the most i know then it's to contact ISP

Wired directly to your modem and run a speed test and see if you're getting the speed your isp is supposed to provide. If you are than try the same thing with your normal connection and see if there's a difference.

Just follow basic troubleshooting principles. Think of each point of failure and then test for each point of failure. So your device is a point of failure, test with another device, your router is a point of failure so connect to the modem directly. Rule out possible points of failure till you find the cause.

"Stealing your net" would most probably mean your neighbors or such would be connected to your wifi router. If you connect to your router settings page as an administrator, you can see who are connected to it, and change the wifi passwords and other hardening so that others can't connect to it.

Or, disable wifi altogether and connect your PC with a cable to it, then you can be sure you are the only one using it.

One pretty reliable test to see what your net speed is is to use some site like speedtest.net (I use that often, also on my phone to see how fast the 4G LTE connection is in different areas).

If you are using wifi, take into account that other wireless devices, your neighbors wifi router, or even a damn leaking microwave oven, can affect your wifi speed or make the connection flaky overall.

For instance, at my home the wireless subwoofer on my TV seems to make my wifi connection quite flaky at times. I presume the subwoofer is using Bluetooth or similar. I can sometimes fix that by turning off and back on the TV soundbar that uses the subwoofer, maybe the subwoofer finds a less congested channel then.

My friend told a couple of weeks ago that he also used to have some odd wifi connection and speed problems, and it turned out the reason was a microwave oven which was physically pretty close to the wifi router, but in another room behind a wall. Also if the microwave oven is old or broken and is leaky (radiating to nearby), then it can really kill your wifi connection.

You can try to change the channel on your wifi router, in case that helps. By default it is probably set to "auto" and is supposed to find a good channel which is not congested, but that doesn't always work right.

One fix I've found is using my phone with an USB cable for internet connectivity instead. :) I guess Bluetooth and such use a completely different frequencies than 4G LTE, hence the other (Bluetooth) devices nearby don't affect the phone's connection similarly as they do for the wifi router.

Wifi isn't really good anyway, as packet loss can become a serious problem. But of course, it always depends on how far you are away from the router and how much stuff is in-between.

Apart from that, where you are connected matters as well. If you are connected via cable, it does matter how many people are in "front of you". So if they are online and using the net extensively, you will be left with lower speed. Something like that can be easily tested by using the internet during off-hours (night, early morning). And as timppu already said, logging into your router to see if you have any extra devices connected via wifi works to make sure that nobody else is using your connection.
Alternatively, you could always have a virus that is dowloading/uploading in the background. Although I doubt that's the case since you said it's only around holidays.

And yeah, look if your ISP guaranteed you any speed. For instance, I have 90% of what is advertised guaranteed. (I always get my 100% anyway though.)