Troubleshooting connectivity issues off campus

If you’re not on campus or in University halls and you’re experiencing issues with the performance of your broadband, there are a few things you may be able to do to improve your connectivity.

Note that the following suggestions are things you may like to consider; we can’t support home broadband or recommend specific technical solutions or products.

  • If you’re having trouble with your home broadband the first thing you can do is re-start your router or computer. Though it has become the standard IT support joke, restarting devices quite often solves a many issues.
  • If your broadband is generally not very good anywhere in your residence, you should speak to your Internet Service Provider, or Landlord if broadband if included in your rent. They should not only understand their broadband and the equipment they have given you better than anyone else, but you are paying for a service which you might not be getting.
  • If you’re struggling while attending an online lecture, seminar or meeting and you are getting a bad network connection that is causing you to freeze or drop out, it may be that you don’t have enough bandwidth. You can often increase the bandwidth available to you by turning off your camera and other internet connected devices.
  • Internet Service Providers offer contracts with various speeds, and this is shared among people using the same router. If you’re subscribed to a basic package and there are many people connected to the same router, the service may run slower if there are many people trying to use it at the same time.
  • If you live in a large property and your workspace is a long distance from the broadband router, this might affect the quality of your Wi-Fi connection. You could move closer to the router or get a Wi-Fi extender, to extend the range of the Wi-Fi. Some Internet Service Providers can provide these if you speak to them about the quality of Wi-Fi in your home, but if they don’t, you can buy one independently. Note though that if you have a poor quality connection in general, extending the signal just means you would have poor Wi-Fi over a wider area.
  • Wired (Ethernet or LAN) connections are often considered more reliable than Wi-Fi signals. If the device you’re using has an Ethernet socket, you may want to connect a cable between your computer and the router. If you’re based a long way from the router, you could buy a powerline adapter. This is a proven, safe and reliable technology which uses your home’s electrical wiring as a wired connection. Wired connections are often prioritised over Wi-Fi. You’ll need to have a spare electrical socket near your router and in your room, and there will need to be an unused Ethernet socket in your router.
  • If you’re having trouble connecting to the GlobalProtect Virtual Private Network (VPN), it may be a problem with your router’s settings. However, there is an article on the knowledge base explaining how you can change your DNS settings to fix this issue. Read this Knowledge Base article (search term troubleshooting connectivity) and scroll down to the "Change your DNS settings" section.