Why is my internet slow at night?
Short answer
Evening is when many people stream, game and download at once, so connections get busy. Slowdowns that appear only at certain hours usually come from your own household, crowded Wi-Fi in a building or a congested shared line, not from broken equipment.
Why evenings are different
In the evening more devices in your home are in use at the same time. In apartment buildings, more neighbouring Wi-Fi networks are busy too. On some connection types, parts of the network are shared between neighbours, so busy hours can slow everyone down.
Test at different times
- Run the SpeedUp test in the morning or another quiet time. Note download, ping and ping under load.
- Run it again in the evening, in the same place with the same device.
- If you can, repeat both on a cable.
What the pattern tells you
| What you see | Likely cause |
|---|---|
| Slow in the evening on Wi-Fi, fine on a cable | Wi-Fi crowding or distance. See how to fix slow Wi-Fi. |
| Slow in the evening on a cable too, ping under load much higher than idle | Your own household uses the line. See bufferbloat. |
| Slow on a cable in the evening, with nothing else running | Possibly a busy shared network or provider congestion. |
| Slow at all hours | The plan, modem or router. See slower than you pay for. |
What you can do
- Pause updates, backups and extra streams while you need speed.
- Use 5 GHz, or a cable for fixed devices. See 2.4 GHz vs 5 GHz.
- Change the Wi-Fi channel if neighbours crowd yours.
- Enable smart queue management or QoS if your router has it.
When to contact your provider
If a cable test is far below your plan every evening, with nothing else running, keep a short log of the times and results and send it to your provider. Concrete numbers get a better answer than "it is slow".