There are several reasons you may be wanting to test your internet speed.
- You may have moved to a new location and want to ascertain that you are getting the bandwidth your service provider claims to be providing
- You may have upgraded your service so need to confirm if the upgraded bandwidth is really the one you are getting
- You are experiencing a problem browsing so you want to ascertain if it’s a problem of a certain website or not
- Or you want to test a new networking hardware you’ve bought.
When you subscribe to an internet service, your internet provider will assign you a particular speed according to your subscription. But is it really the speed you are actually getting?
The reality can be quite different.
There are several ways to determine the speed you are actually getting. You can use browser-based speed tests to help you determine your download and upload speeds, as well as find out other issues affecting your network such as dormancy, packet loss, firewall, jitter etc.
SpeedTest.net
This web-based speed test will perform three benchmarks to test your download speed, upload speed and latency. Then you can use the obtained figures to compare to the theoretical values your internet service provider claims to offer. This will help you determine if you are getting the speed you are paying for.
Speedof.me
This is an HTML5-based internet speed test. It is lightweight and made to ascertain real-world browsing and download conditions by requesting a number of files in an increasing size and recording speed at which they are downloaded. The result includes a display of a graph of speed obtained in real-time and allows monitoring of results against previous tests. The website automatically calculates the quickest and most reliable server for you, from the available 59.
MySpeed Visualware
Though it lacks in user-friendliness, it is a powerful, fast, and detailed tool that measures more than just how fast you can download a movie, software or game. MySpeed Visualware results provide detailed information not found in other internet speed test providers, including settings for TCP, overall navigation time, laxness, stability level etc. so you know the accuracy of your obtained results.
Speakeasy
It functions a little different from other web-based internet speed tests. You can pick from a major city to perform a speed test from a drop-down menu, instead of just a country or a state. It also provides an app for various devices and operating systems from which to test internet speed. However, it is incompatible with some browsers since it doesn’t run on Flash.
