Ways to Speed Up Your Public Wifi Connection. Public Wifi And Its Woes. I previously mentioned connection problems with Windows Vista and 7 when trying to join some wireless networks. This article got me thinking about other related problems especially when using public wifi in hotels, coffee shops and so on. Im just back home after travelling around Mexico and the most consistent and memorable part of my trip for all the wrong reasons was that the public wifi is awful. How To Remove Dial Up Connection Vista' title='How To Remove Dial Up Connection Vista' />To understand why this slowness happens and what you can do about it, Ill firstly explain how a wifi or more correctly, a wireless router and broadband internet connection works and why it sometimes goes awfully slow Sharing is Caring, Right  Wrong When we order our home broadband we tend to get very excited about the prospect of having 1. MB or 8. MB or 2. MB or whatever connection speed youve been sold. Often it is super quick too especially compared to our old dial up or ISDN lines but whats really going on under the covers Lets take an example You live in an apartment block and youve just bought an 8. MB DSL broadband service from ACME Telecom. So in the first instance, what does this 8. MB figure mean Well in theory its about 1. That 8. MB figure is the maximum theoretical speed that your broadband can achieve under perfect conditions with no one else sharing the line. So how is it shared, I hear you ask  No youre not being hacked. Your 8. MB line could in theory be shared by the number of people specified in the contention ratio of your line. Your Internet Provider will usually provide the contention ratio for your broadband service in the literature on their website and it normally ranges between 4 1 and 3. It is this contention ratio that is the first factor in slowing down the line. So back to our example and lets say 3 of your neighbours in the same block have order the same package from the ACME Telecom. File Upload Manager. Start.jpg' alt='How To Remove Dial Up Connection Vista' title='How To Remove Dial Up Connection Vista' />HP Officejet Pro 8610 eAllinOneHP Officejet Pro 8620 eAllinOneHP Officejet Pro 8630 eAllinOne User Guide. Just receive a VISTA machine and Ive encountered the following problems Cant see any share drive from XP machines although I could ping these machines. System Crash Dump Vista Fix, Clean SYSTEM CRASH DUMP VISTA And Optimize PC SPEED Up Your PC FREE Scan Now Recommended. Download Wise PC 1Staid. Svchost High Cpu Fix, Clean, Repair SVCHOST HIGH CPU Improve Its Performance SPEED Up Your PC Free Scan Now Recommended. Regclean Pro. In theory your bandwidth is now only around 2. MB. Of course, the line is not logically divided in such a way. In fact, the lines full bandwidth would be available to one person if the other three were not using it which by the way is when you should be using it more on that later. So how else is your line being used Have an i. Phone or other smart phone An i. Pad or other tabletA second or third computer Lets look at the computer youre currently using what programs are running Outlook polling for mail frequently, instant messengers, Skype, open browsers, windows updates, anti virus programs. Every one of these is sucking up the bandwidth of whats left of your 8. MBs. Apply this situation to a public internet situation such as a hotel lobby and there are potentially dozens of laptops, smartphones, etc sucking the connection dry, hence, sloooow internet. So now you have an idea of whats happening with a broadband connection Ill give you some tips on how to find some speed when youre using a public connection thats a touch slow. How To Find Some Wifi Speed In Public Quiet Area, quiet Wifi. Wherever you happen to be, if there are a lot of people around chances are the wifi is being used heavily. Find a quiet location and connect to the Wifi Access Point with the strongest signal. In the case of a hotel, the lobby and bar are usually the busiest. How To Remove Dial Up Connection Vista' title='How To Remove Dial Up Connection Vista' />Head to the business centre in the evenings. Theyre usually empty and have dedicated wifi available. Unnecessary Bandwidth Hoggers. Close programs you arent using, even if you think theyre not using the internet they probably are. Antivirus programs update lots, so does Windows, instant messengers are constantly polling for status updates and new messages, twitter clients and newsreaders do the same. If youre just trying to get onto your email or a particular website when out using public wifi then closing all that stuff down may just make the difference. Timing Is Everything. Use public wifi off peak and youll notice a huge difference. In my case, early morning in my Mexico hotel meant super quick connection speed just like home. As the day wore on however the connection got slower and slower and then in the evening time it was quick again while everyone was boozing and eating and sleeping. All I used to see in my hotel lobby were people with laptops just looking, waiting and wondering why the connection was so poor. Log In Wifi Is Better Than Shared Password. Try to find a public wifi where you connect to the wifi without a password and then have to login via a custom branded website belonging to the hotel or cafe or whatever. If you are prompted for a password when connecting to the wireless network and you ask the concierge for the password and he hands you a scrap of paper this means its something of a home broadband package that isnt really designed for dozens of users at once. The log in style ones you get in airports, big hotel chains and out in the public domain are super super quick designed for many users and will usually be a contention ratio 1 1. Hopefully, these few tips will help you on your next travels. Rosco. P. S.   A new tips submission section is coming soon to Proposed Solution where you can submit your own helpful tips for all to read.