Have you been in the middle of important work or binge-watching the latest TV show only to get stuck on a crawling internet connection when it's pouring outside?
Let's unpack the possible causes so you know why your internet is so slow when it rains and if there's anything you can do about it.
You might be affected by heavy rainfall in the following ways:
These are all likely to cause slower internet speeds or, in more extreme cases, network outages.
Most Australian households are connected to the NBN for broadband. But because there's no one-size-fits-all approach to the NBN rollout, the impact of the rain is different depending on the NBN connection type in your home.
For context, the path the data travels goes from the wire you see outside your house all the way to a satellite miles away in space and then back to earth to a station on ground.
That's a long journey and bad weather can easily block or weaken satellite signals via radio waves.
Blaming your Wi-Fi network when it's raining may be a waste of time if it's in fact the Wi-Fi signals travelling to your home that bad weather has disrupted.
There's little your internet provider can do until the skies settle down.
Human behaviour is most likely the main cause of slow internet during bad weather
While wet weather can affect your internet cabling and cause outages, the main reason for your super slow internet is more likely because everybody has decided to stay indoors and jump online, just like you.
This causes an increase in network traffic, meaning more congestion resulting in slower speeds.
To navigate a spotty internet connection, you could consider some of the following quick solutions:
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