If your internet feels slower than it should, the cause is usually inside your home: Wi-Fi, an old cable or device, or something else using the connection. These steps help you work out whether the problem is your connection or your home network, and what to do about it. They take about 15 minutes.

1. Restart your router and connection box

Turn off your router and your connection box (the nbn box, or your fibre network’s box), wait a minute, then turn the connection box on first and the router a couple of minutes later. A restart clears many temporary problems.

While you wait, check status.quokkanet.au for any known outages in your area.

2. Test with an Ethernet cable

Connect a computer directly to your router with an Ethernet cable. If your laptop doesn’t have an Ethernet port, a USB-to-Ethernet adapter works.

Why this matters: a cable bypasses Wi-Fi, so the result shows the real speed of your connection, not how well your Wi-Fi reaches that room.

Use a Cat 5e or Cat 6 cable. An older Cat 5 cable, or a computer with a 100 Mbps network port, caps your speed at about 95 Mbps.

3. Run a speed test

Go to speedtest.net and run a test on the wired computer. Then run another on Wi-Fi, from the same room as the router, and compare.

  • The wired result is close to your plan speed: your Quokka Net service is working. If Wi-Fi is much slower, the problem is your Wi-Fi. See step 5.
  • The wired result is well below your plan speed: go on to step 4.

Speeds dip a little in the busy evening hours (7pm to 11pm). Test at a few different times of day before deciding something is wrong.

4. Test with only one device connected

  1. Disconnect everything from your network except the one computer plugged in with a cable.
  2. Turn off Wi-Fi on the router, or turn off other Wi-Fi devices, and unplug any switches, extenders or powerline adapters.
  3. Run another speed test.

Getting your plan speed now? Your Quokka Net service is working. Something else on your network was using the connection, or slowing it down.

Common culprits:

  • cloud backups and sync apps, like OneDrive, Google Drive, iCloud and Dropbox
  • game, console and computer updates downloading in the background
  • security cameras uploading video
  • older switches, powerline adapters or routers that can’t keep up with your plan speed

Many routers have Quality of Service (QoS) settings that put video calls and gaming ahead of downloads. For a business or a complicated home network, a local IT technician can help.

5. Improve your Wi-Fi

If your speed is fine on a cable but slow on Wi-Fi:

  • Put your router somewhere central and out in the open, not in a cupboard, behind the TV or on the floor.
  • Keep it away from microwaves, cordless phones, fish tanks and large metal objects.
  • Connect to the 5 GHz network when you’re near the router. It’s much faster than 2.4 GHz, though it doesn’t reach as far.
  • Restart devices that have been on for weeks.
  • For a larger home, or one with brick or concrete walls, a mesh Wi-Fi system like eero or TP-Link Deco covers far more of the house than a single router.
  • If your router is more than about five years old, a newer Wi-Fi 6 router can make a big difference. See our router guides.

Older phones, laptops and smart TVs can’t reach high speeds over Wi-Fi however good your router is.

6. When you need a faster plan

If your household streams, games, works from home or syncs files all at once, your plan’s speed may simply not be enough. Enter your address in the address checker on our home page to see the plans and speeds available there, or contact us and we’ll go through them and change your plan.

7. Still slow?

If your wired, one-device test is still well below your plan speed, we’ll investigate. Report a problem or call us on 1800 663 977, and tell us:

  • your speed test results, and the times you ran them
  • that you tested with a cable and only one device connected
  • whether it’s slow all the time or only at certain times

We’ll run tests on the line and, if the fault is in the network, raise it with the network for you. On nbn, see when nbn will investigate slow speeds or dropouts.