Why your website is slow on Nepali mobile data

A site that feels instant on office wifi can take eleven seconds on a phone in Chitwan. The gap is almost always the same four things.

1. Images nobody compressed

The single most common cause. A 3MB hero photo straight from a camera is real money on a mobile data pack, and it delays the largest contentful paint on exactly the devices most of your visitors use. Serve modern formats and size them for the slot they occupy.

2. A video that autoplays on phones

Background video looks good in a demo and costs a megabyte before the page is usable. Show a still image on small screens and load the video only from tablet width up.

3. Fonts that block the first paint

Every extra family and weight is another download. Pick one family, load the weights you actually use, and set display: swap so text is readable while the font arrives.

4. Layout that jumps while loading

Not strictly speed, but it is what makes a site feel broken. Give every image and embed an explicit width and height so the browser reserves the space before the file lands.

/* Reserve the box before the image arrives. Zero layout shift. */
.media {
  aspect-ratio: 4 / 3;
  width: 100%;
  background: #eaf2ff;
}

How to check

Test on a real mid range Android phone on mobile data, not on a laptop with the network throttled. Then use PageSpeed Insights and read the field data section, which reflects real visitors rather than a lab run.

Most of these are an afternoon of work rather than a rebuild. If the site is beyond patching, that is worth knowing too. See website maintenance in Nepal.