It’s very important to have a good connection for who use Internet a lot for downloading, video streaming or play videogames in network
Firstly verify your download and upload data match that ones of you expect from your Internet provider subscription.
You can measure these values with the famous SpeedTest web site.
It’s recommanded to run the test without any other program/service/device that is using the connection at that time.
Once you see that is ok you can follow these suggestions to improve your connection performances:
– it’s better to don’t use the connection for more than one task at the same time and don’t use many devices connected at the same time
– it’s preferred to use cable connection (ethernet) instead of the wireless wireless, there are less dispersions. Max length allowed is 100mt. and it’s better to use high quality cable (cat. 5e, 6, 7)
– use DNS that can give you better performance than your Internet DNS provider, for example Google or OpenDNS. You can also use Namebench, a free portable utility to measure DNS speed
– use, if possible, a good home router instead of the one provided from your Internet provider
– in Windows you can optimize your Internet connection with SG TCP Optimizer, a free utility