Unbelievable but TRUE: Your Christmas tree is SLOWING DOWN your home broadband speed

Your decorated Christmas tree could be slowing down your home wifi network

YOUR Christmas decorations might make the home feel warm, cosy and festive – but they are playing havoc with your home wifi network.

If you want a speedy home broadband connection this winter, you might want to keep your Christmas decorations in a box in the attic.

Telecom experts Ofcom have warned that fairy lights around the home – or tree – can slow your broadband speeds.

Wifi networks could become sluggish in more than six million UK homes over the Christmas period, according to research by Ofcom.

Slow internet speeds around the home are often triggered by interference from another electronic device, including microwave ovens, baby monitors, lamps and fairy lights.

 

Home wifi speeds will get slower in proportion to the number of fairy lights in your home

To help users resolve the issue, Ofcom has launched an app to help broadband customers discover what's going wrong with their internet speeds.

The smartphone and tablet app tests the users' wifi set-up and, if it unearths a problem, will provide some troubleshooting tips to help improve broadband speeds.

It's being launched alongside Ofcom’s Connected Nations 2015 report which takes an in-depth look at how the UK's internet is performing.

This year’s report shows good progress on the availability and take-up of communications services, which are now crucial in people’s personal and working lives.

However, it also recognises there is still more to do – particularly in improving broadband and mobile availability and quality of service for consumers and businesses around the country.

The coverage and quality of fixed broadband services across the UK has increased markedly over the past year.

More than a quarter of homes now have ‘superfast’ broadband – with a connection of 30 Mbit/s or more, up from one in five a year ago.

 

Superfast broadband is now available to over eight in ten UK homes, up from 75% last year.

This has partly been driven by BT rolling out its fibre network, Virgin Media converting more homes to faster packages, and the Government’s on-going Broadband Delivery UK programme extending superfast into areas not covered by the commercial market.

Broadband in rural areas also continues to improve, with superfast broadband now available to almost four in ten premises across the UK.

 

The Ofcom report explains broadband speeds and what an average home can expect to use