Column: Several tools can measure speed of internet connection

Since the dawn of broadband internet, folks have always wondered, is my connection as fast as advertised? Is there any way to get an unbiased measurement? Obviously, the answer is yes. Otherwise, this would be an awfully short column. How, then, does one go about keeping the internet service provider honest?

Nowadays there are several tools on the web that measure the speed of your connection. Back in the day, many of these tools were sponsored by the ISP itself, which of course made them a bit suspect.

The king of internet speed testing today is the aptly named speedtest.net. Even ISP personnel use it, sometimes on the down-low when they suspect a problem. It’s free and easy to use. Go to www.speedtest.net, click “Go” and it gives you your download and upload speed as well as a ping test, which measures latency. Speedtest also shows you where it thinks you are, and tells you the destination that it’s using to perform its measurements. There’s also a fully functional app for smartphones.

What’s all this mean? To keep it simple, if you’re on a wireless network at your home or office, run speedtest, and get 65% or more of what your ISP says you should get, then you’re good. Stop worrying and go back to whatever you were doing on the web … no judgment here. You might be able to improve on this performance, but the gain will not be worth the effort. If you’re on a wired network, you might look for a bit more, say 70%, give or take.

If you get substantially less than that, consider using an alternative to speedtest. Just to be sure. Speedof.me is another popular test, also free and easy to use. Testmy.net is a bit clunkier but pretty reliable.

If all of your speed tests report poor performance, you will need to eliminate as much of your own gear as you can before complaining to the ISP. Typically, this is done by plugging a PC directly into the ISP’s modem. Be careful when conducting this task. By doing so, you are putting your computer directly onto the internet, exposing it to the world with little protection.

Once you’ve done this, run speedtest again. In this scenario you should get at least 85% of the advertised bandwidth. Why not 100%? The fact of the matter is there is no such thing as a perfect circuit, and there is always overhead on a network, even when directly connected. Getting 85% is being fair to the ISP, though.

If you get less than 85%, call your ISP and ask why. If you get 85% or more, then you have a problem with your own equipment, which will require investigation and troubleshooting steps far too lengthy for this space.

John Agsalud is an IT expert with more than 25 years of information technology experience in Hawaii and around the world. He can be reached at jagsalud@live.com.