How to check the speed of my Wi-Fi? - ACT

If Wi-Fi speeds confuse you, you are not alone. We will try and help you answer the following queries for you.

• What is Wi-Fi speed?
• How does high speed wifi work?
• What is kbps, mbps, MBps and gbps?
• What is the difference between upload and download speeds?
• What affects my wifi speed?

Internet speed is your allocated bandwidth based on your internet plan. Bandwidth is the amount of data that can be used by you, measured in seconds. For example, 10 Mbps would mean that you can receive or send up to 10 megabits of data per second.

Internet Speed Tests

1. If you’ve ever checked your broadband internet speed it is likely that you’ve used the Ookla Speed Test. Ookla’s Net Index takes the information from Speedtest.net and organizes it, making it easy to consume.
2. Click the “Go to my location” link and you’ll be redirected to a page listing all the ISPs that are available in your area. You can also look up a specific city. The ISPs are ranked on the basis of recent Speedtest.net download speed results of their subscribers. Here, you can see which internet service providers are actually the fastest. Ookla’s speed test also allows you to compare average Internet speeds between different countries, regions, and even cities for you to understand various speeds across locations. You can check the rankings based on upload speeds, connection quality, value for the price.

Understanding Speed Test Results

Most reliable speed test providers measure and report three important internet metrics: upload speed, download speed, ping and latency.

1. Download Speed:

   Download speed can be measured by the number of megabits you consume per second to receive data such as images, video files, etc. Activities like listening to audio online, receiving an email, streaming on services like Netflix or Prime video can be considered as downloading. Usually, a download speed of 25Mbps is considered ideal for streaming videos, engaging on video calls, etc.

2. Upload speed

   Upload speed is referred to as the number of megabits of data you can send to another device over your internet connection. Though downloading is more widely known and understood, uploading data is the opposite of downloading. It can be simply understood as sending an email, playing a video game, etc. When people see your video calls blurred, it can be understood that there is an issue with your upload speed. Usually, upload speeds of 3Mbps are considered to be good enough for work from home, video calling, etc.

3. Ping:

   A ping is a request sent to a server requesting a response. The server sends back a response in a single packet, if available. This transaction is calculated in milliseconds. The ping time is the amount of time taken by the request to circle back with a response to the device. Ping tests are more commonly used by gamers to understand the amount of time it took for them to hit a host with a request and get a response. Higher the ping time, more the data transfer delays you are bound to experience.

4. Jitter:

   Technically a jitter is a variance in the latency experienced. For example, you may usually get a latency of 20ms on the server you are playing on. You might get spikes of 70ms or even 220ms, before it drops back to 20ms. Anything under 100ms is considered as acceptable latency to game on, however, latency under 25ms is preferred by most gamers.