Part of having an Internet connection means paying a monthly fee to a company to provide it to you. These Internet service providers (ISPs) are different for many people worldwide and will often vary wildly in quality of service. One thing is consistent among them: they offer packages that are tiered by speed.

You'd think that the package you pay for guarantees you the speed advertised on the tin, but that actually couldn't be further from the truth. ISPs will actually throttle, or decrease connection speed in order to conserve bandwidth on the network, but it can sometimes leave users with a less-than-ideal experience. If you think your connection is being throttled, here are 4 ways you can tell for sure, as well as what you can do to mitigate it.

4 Your experience is worse during peak hours

Throttling can come during times of high network load

When everyone in your area is trying to access the Internet at the same time, it can cause significant slowdowns for everyone, especially if the infrastructure can't handle it. In a somewhat dubious effort to mitigate network congestion, ISPs will sometimes throttle connections during these peak hours. These peak hours can vary slightly depending on where you are in the world, but they'll usually fall between 8 AM to 12 PM, and 5PM to 10PM. This is when most people are online, either for work or for play. Weekends are also a time of particularly high load.

Telling whether you're affected by throttling during these hours is pretty straightforward. Running two speed tests, one during peak hours and one outside that range, might give you some clues as to what's going on. If you're not getting the full speed you pay for at either time, it could be a different issue entirely, but if you're getting your advertised numbers during both tests, chances are it's not a congestion issue.

3 Streaming quality suffers despite paying for high speeds

ISPs can throttle traffic based on the content within

Not all network traffic is created equal; high-resolution video streams require a lot more bandwidth than something like a web query, and ISPs can control the "flow rate," as it were, of these types of connections. Testing your connection speed to sites like YouTube or Netflix versus a conventional speed test could give you some idea as to what's going on, but it's not an exact science. There are more factors at play than just "is my ISP throttling video streams," but it is one piece of the puzzle. High-speed plans that offer gigabit connections will be hard to saturate fully with conventional streaming and browsing, but if you do have one of these plans and you're still struggling with buffering and low quality, it could be a sign your ISP is meddling with your connection.

2 Routing through a VPN remedies the issue

If it helps, it could mean your ISP is to blame

One of the ways to mask what kinds of content you're viewing from the all-seeing gaze of your ISP is to use a VPN. VPNs are useful for troubleshooting network issues, especially speed-related ones. VPNs do have a bit of network overhead, but not enough to make a significant difference in most cases. If you're able to get your advertised speeds and aren't experiencing slowdowns when routing through a VPN, it could mean your ISP is throttling your connection. Take a moment and test all of your usual sites and conduct some speed tests using multiple different sources, with and without the VPN. This will give you a better idea of what might be happening.

1 Switching ISPs may be your only option

If it's even possible

If you still can't figure out whether your connection is being throttled or not, it might be worth bringing up the matter to your ISP. Unfortunately, support staff can sometimes be rather unhelpful, and the technicians they send out can also be a roll of the dice. It's important to come armed with the right information if you do happen to contact your ISP.

If you're able to remedy or diagnose the situation using a certain strategy, whether it be by using a VPN or by doing a variety of speed tests, this information is useful for your ISP to know. Ideally, you'd want them to fix the issue for you, but it might be worthwhile to switch providers entirely if a resolution isn't found. Unfortunately, in many areas, this isn't even an option because of the monopolization of Internet service, but if you do have a couple of different options, it's worth researching them.

ISPs hate losing paying customers, and in my personal experience, every time I've called to cancel a service with one, they've tried every trick in the book to try and get me to stay. Reducing the price per month, raising the speed, TV packages—you name it, they offered it. This is also a route you can take if you're frustrated with your service. Call them, tell them you're thinking about canceling because of poor service, and you just might get your issue solved (as well as a better price for your plan).

Throttling isn't always the issue

While it might be easy to pin the blame on your ISP for your slow connection, it's important that you rule out as many factors as possible before doing so. Make sure you're conducting your speed tests with a device that's hardwired into your router via a functioning and known-good Ethernet cable. Testing many different devices can also be helpful in trying to diagnose any network issues.