QoS

Limit the bandwidth to half for his laptop

Also, any torrent client would have a setting to limit the bandwidths, so if he’s lying about torrenting, then he’s also intentionally not using those settings

The issue could be something completely different too, you’ll have to eliminate the possibilities one by one if the QoS doesn’t work

Like most issues this can easily be solved by a monkey knife fight

Imagine being the dude having to deal with someone like you hahahah

So he says he’s not doing it, you block him and it doesn’t fix the issue, any chance maybe you are wrong and being a horrible housemate?

Perhaps there is another issue causing your speed issues and you are just taking it out on him.

If your internet speed stays low when no one is using it, your ISP could be throttling your speed. I just hope your housemate is using a VPN.

If he isn’t illegally torrenting anuthing, your ISP isn’t going to care.

Set up QoS. Limit bandwidth by half, so you both get half the network.

Or, I dunno, talk to them like an adult. Don’t just block their shit, especially if they’re paying

We’ve called him out in the past but he swears up and down that he doesn’t do it despite the evidence I have of him

What evidence do you have of him doing it exactly?

Who is paying the internet bill?

You say you have blocked his laptop how? and completely blocked it or limited the bandwidth?

Set up Mac address whitelist and add your devices/devices you want to allow in your network to it and you’re done

Your ISP most likely throttled your connection because of the torrenting.

Have you checked your router for malware? If he’s going to sketchy sites it’s possible you’ve been compromised.

do you know he torrents or have you simply assumed it ?

Looks like you are in america, so a big isp might have throttled the connection.

can you get him to turn off the pc and then run a speed test

if the internet speeds are shit with his laptop blocked, then it is not his laptop causing the issues

Is your internet on some sort of distributed BW system like Cable modem nodes, or provided by an apartment building, etc?

IF so the issue may not be be in your side of the network.

Also are you wireless or wired while testing, some areas get hyper saturated with 802.11 noise, and can negatively affect wireless. Especially when everyone router is “Auto optimizing” id est channel hopping, and the saturation moves in waves and echoes. If you do determine this IS the problem, set a specific channel, it will not fix it, but it will make in in general better more often.

Can take your router out of the picture and retest direct to provider, if speeds are still now what you pay for, contact who you get that service from, and *then* you get to learn why they all read “Up to” in the fine print!