How to Test Internet Speed?

If you are an internet user, then definitely you will be concerned about your internet speed. There are many software and websites available online that allow you to test internet speed of your network.

In this section, we will be testing the internet speed using speedtest.net by Ookla, as it the ‘global leader’ in ‘internet testing’. But, before proceeding let us understand the term internet speed.

What is internet speed?

Basically, the internet speed is the bandwidth assigned to you which determines the ‘total amount of data’ that you can receive over the World Wide Web (www) per seconds. Larger is the bandwidth faster is your internet speed.

The internet speed is measured in Mbps i.e. megabytes per second. If your bandwidth is 32 Mbps that means you are receiving 32 megabytes of data per second. When you test internet speed the result is displayed in two contexts that are:

Downloading Speed: The speed at which you receive or consume the data from the worldwide web.

Uploading Speed: The speed at which you deliver/upload the data on the worldwide web.

Generally, the downloading internet speed is larger as compared to the uploading internet speed. This is because most of the users on the internet are the consumer of data. There is a very little crowd over the internet which delivers or uploads the data.

Steps to Test Internet Speed:

Step 1: To test your internet speed first open your internet browser and switch to speedtest.net.

As soon as the website is opened you can see that it is searching for the optimal server. Speedtest identifies five servers near you and then finalize one server near you with minimal latency.

Step 2: Now, simply click on Go to start the speed test.

It will first measure ping for the finalized server, which in my case comes out to be 10 ms. Now, here many of you will confuse with the term ping. So, before proceeding let us learn a little about ping.

What is Ping?

Ping is the response time of your internet connection, which reveals how fast you get a response to your request. Greater is the ping value slower is the network you are using. Lower is the ping value faster is the network. Ping is a time measured in millisecond(ms).

As in the above image you can see my ping value is 10 ms which states whenever I request for any data from the server I am responded with the data within 10 ms.

After measuring Ping, it will measure download speed.

Once download speed is measured, Speedtest measures upload speed.

So, this is all about how you can test internet speed with the help of Speedtest by Ookla. By testing your internet speed on a regular basis you can keep a check on the service of your ISP (Internet Service Provider).