Internet Speed Test
Why should I test my internet speed with an internet speed test?
An internet speed test measures the connection speed and quality of your connected device to the internet. It does so by running multiple consecutive tests that analyze different aspects of your internet connectionnamely ping (latency)download speedand upload speed. Each of these values represents the connection's specific qualitieswhich you can read more about in the paragraph after the next. These should help you understand the final speed test results. But before we get to thesewe first want to discuss how to perform each test.
Speed Test Online
Running a WiFi Speed Test is the right solution for most people if they encounter
connectivity issues as they are usually internet speed related. The reason is simple. Most of the devices
on your home network today are not connected with a wired connection anymore. They are all connected via
WiFi. So to figure out if your connectivity issues are due to your ISPyour wireless connection or a
local router issue running a WiFi Test will give you the insights you're looking for. Just run multiple
testsone close to your WiFi Hotspot and one in the place where you're having issues
because the signal strength diminishes. If the internet speeds are the same for the weak and strong
signalit's likely an ISP issue. If the interet speeds differ on your connected deviceshoweverthe
poor connectivity is likely either due to a local misconfiguration or device capabilities. Maybe your
device is not connecting to the correct WiFi hotspotso it must go through a thick wall. Selectively
enabling and disabling your WiFi hotspots can quickly help identify the problematic device. You can run a
WiFi speed test on all your devices to idenitify the ones that have a strong WiFi signal and the ones
that don't. In addition you could check internet speed with a network speed test as well to compare
wireless and wired connectivity.
Test my internet speed?
To learn more about the specific requirements of the bandwidth speed testwe've prepared the sections below that will explain the details of what actually happening during the speedtest.
How to test download speed?
To speed test internet performance for downloading data the test is performed by opening multiple connections to a server and simultaneously starting the download of a large data file on all connections. This approach ensures that the entire bandwidth of the internet connection is maxed out, and thereby the maximum data throughput can be measured. Recording the data throughput against measurement time finally yields the available internet speed for downloading data.
How to test upload speed?
Upload speed is tested by reversing the sequence of the download analysis. Again multiple connections are opened to the test server. Instead of downloading a filea large file of random data is created on your device and pushed through all connections to the server. Pushing the data to the server over the network via multiple streams ensures that the maximum throughput is measured. Againrecording the data throughput against time yields the available internet speed for uploading data.
How to test ping?
During the ping testthe device sends a small data package over the network to the test server on the internet. This test doesn't focus on upload speeds but on response time. When the server receives this packageit will send it back to the devicecompleting the roundtrip. The time it takes the data package to complete the roundtrip is called latencyalso known as ping. To achieve an accurate readingmultiple ping tests are conducted consecutivelywith the final result being the average of all these tests.
All these are automatically handled for you when you use Speedcheck to test internet speed. But you should take one crucial aspect into account to test speed accurately. Choose the right tool. This depends on the device you want to usebeing a phone or tabletor a computer. To check internet speed on a computeruse your browser and the app on this website. To achieve accurate results on mobile devicesyou should download our iOS or Android apprespectively. This is especially important when running a WiFi speed test. Because browsers on mobile devices have poor performancewe suggest using a mobile app written in native code to ensure the most accurate test results.
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Internet Speed Metrics
What is download speed?
Download speed determines the transfer rate of how fast data is transferred to your device from the internet. It's calculated by dividing the total throughput of data in a given time frame by its duration. Therefore its unit is denoted by units of data over time. Most oftendownload speeds are denoted in Megabits per second (Mbps or Mb/s)although other forms like Kilobits per second (Kbps or Kb/s) or Megabyte per second (MBps or MB/s) are also common.
What is upload speed?
Upload speeds as opposed to download speeds characterize the amount of data your device can send to the internet. It's calculated the same way and is therefore denoted in the same units. Upload speed is very important for online gaming and video callswhere you need as much speed as possible.
What is a ping (latency)?
The ping or latency describes the delay of a signal due to the time it takes that signal to travel to its destination. In this contextit represents the time it takes a data package to complete its roundtrip over the network and the acknowledgment from the server that it was received. As a value of timeit is denoted as suchmost often in Milliseconds (ms). It's a value for the responsiveness of your connection that also correlates with packet loss. A high latency will lead to more packet loss while a low latency will ensure almost none.
Why should I test my internet?
I can test my internet speed to learn about my connection speeds. This enables me to a) ensure that I'm getting what I'm paying for from my internet service provider and b) helps me adapt my expectations about what type of applications I can run like online games or video calls without issues on my network.
How fast is your internet?
It's important to understand that different internet speeds are necessary for different usage scenarios. Both download and upload speeds determine what's possible. So when you test internet speedkeep in mind that the question "How fast is my internet?" can only be answered in relation to what you want to use the connection for. While simply browsing the web can be achieved with low single-digit megabit per second speedsstreaming Netflix in 4K resolution will need a maximum speed of at least a 25Mbps connection speed. Online gaming will primarily be influenced by your pingwith a smaller ping being better while publishing content on the weblike uploading large videos to Youtube will be primarily constrained by your upload bandwidth. To download files especially large files at a good speed you should aim for a download speed with a transfer rate of at least 10Mbps.