Your WiFi is slow. Your internet is probably fine.

A large share of the support calls we take about slow internet turn out to be about WiFi. The connection arriving at the building is delivering what it should; the wireless network distributing it inside is not. The two get reported as the same problem because from a desk they feel identical, and the distinction only becomes obvious once someone tests from the right place.

The test that separates them takes two minutes. Run a speed test on a device connected to the router by cable, then run the same test on WiFi in the place where people complain. If the cabled result is good and the wireless one is poor, the incoming connection is not your problem and no upgrade to it will help.

Three things cause most of the difference. The first is distance and building material: WiFi loses strength through walls, and it loses a great deal through the concrete and stone that Kenyan buildings are commonly built from. A router in a corner office is serving the far end of the floor through several walls.

The second is interference. In a block of flats or a busy office park, dozens of networks are competing on the same channels. Your equipment is working correctly and still spending much of its time waiting for a gap to transmit in. Choosing channels deliberately, rather than accepting whatever the router picked when it was first switched on, recovers a surprising amount.

The third is that one router is being asked to do a job it was never designed for. A device supplied to serve a flat is not going to cover a two storey house or an office of thirty people, however it is positioned. That is not a fault; it is the wrong tool. The fix is access points placed where coverage is needed and fed properly, not a bigger router in the same corner.

The reason this is worth understanding before you call anyone is that an internet upgrade is the most commonly sold answer to a wireless problem, and it does not work. Test cabled first. If that figure is healthy, the money is better spent on coverage than on capacity you already have and cannot reach.