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Your
line speed:
??? Kbps
??? K bytes/sec
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Does your Internet connection
fly like an eagle or crawl like a tortoise? Is it just your
imagination, or is your Internet connection slow today?
Whether you are using a cable modem, an asymmetric digital
subscriber line (ADSL), digital subscriber line (DSL), integrated
services digital network (ISDN) connection, or just a plain
old dial-up modem, the Bandwidth Speed Test will
give you the answer.
To calculate your connect speed
we need to send a large amount of data to your computer.
Your computer has already started. When it's done, the results
will be displayed in the box above and in the Speed Test
Thermometer below.
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Speed Test Thermometer
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Off
the chart!
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T-2
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2Mbps
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1.5Mbps
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T-1
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1Mbps
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500Kbps
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200Kbps
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100Kbps
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ISDN
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60Kbps
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ISDN
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40Kbps
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56K
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20Kbps
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Questions & Answers:
How does
this page calculate my connection speed?
Why
do I get different speed results each time I run the Bandwidth
Speed Test?
I
thought my Internet connection was faster. Why does the
Speed Test come up with a lower figure?
Could
my Internet Service Provider (ISP) be the cause of my slow
down?
I have
a 56K modem. Why isn't my download speed even close to 56K?
How
does this page calculate my connection speed?
Actually, this isn't just one
Web page, it's two Web pages, each with a hidden data file
in the header area of the page. When either of these pages
loads, it notes the time just before and just after the
data file loads, then uses this information and the size
of the data file to calculate the rate at which the data
arrived at your computer.
When the first of these two
pages was loaded, it did a rough calculation using a small
data file to provide an estimate of how long it will take
the second page, with its much larger data file, to download.
The second page, with its larger data file, allowed the
second page to calculate more accurate figures for the Your
Line Speed: box and Speed Test Thermometer above.
Why do I get different speed results each time I run The
Bandwidth Speed Test?
Like any major highway system,
the Internet information highway has many roadways and interchanges,
each with their own capacity and speed limit, and, like
highways for cars, sometimes you get traffic delays. Just
as you have to wait in a your car while other traffic goes
through at a traffic light, data sent to your computer has
to wait while other data passes through routers, the Internet
equivalent of an intersection, on it's way to you.
You are more likely to run
into slow Internet traffic during peak use hours than those
times when fewer people are online, such as after 11 p.m.
and before 7 a.m. When this page was being tested, I found
that the results on my 144Kbps DSL line results varied from
a consistent 120 to 135Kbps mid-morning and afternoon, all
the way down to 64Kbps during evening peak-use hours. If
you really want to find out what your best possible Bandwidth
Speed Test result is, try loading this page at 3:00am
on a weeknight, when almost everyone is asleep when Internet
use is at it's lowest. (Friday and Saturday nights are not
a good choice.)
I thought my Internet connection was supposed to be faster.
Why does the Speed Test come up with a lower figure?
No Internet connection ever
performs at 100%. When we test loaded this page direct from
our test Web server across a two computer 10Mbps local area
network (LAN), our best result was 6.6Mbps (6667Kbps). There
is always some loss, and the faster your connection
is, the greater that loss is going to be.
Next, this page can only measure
the time it takes the applications data--the actual data
file--to reach your browser. Wrapped around that data is
some overhead that can range from 2 percent to 25 percent
of the total data sent. There's no way for the program built
into this Web page to control or discover exactly how much
overhead was used to send the page's internal data file,
but generally the percentage is small, and this page adjusts
its figures up by 2 percent to compensate. Nevertheless,
the actual overhead may be higher than expected, resulting
in a depressed value for the Kbps figure.
Also remember that your connection
to your ISP is just one part of the system that gets data
to your computer. Between your computer and the server that
sent this Web page there are probably a dozen or more routers,
communications links, and other network components this
page had to travel through. Each of these components have
a set capacity and speed at which they can operate, and
most of them handle network traffic for thousands, even
millions of computers every day. The inevitable result is
that all Internet traffic encounters some sort of
delay as it transits across The Net, and that reduces the
amount of data that gets funneled into your connection in
the first place.
I'm getting a big slowdown. Could my Internet Service
Provider (ISP) be the cause of my problem?
Perhaps.
The delay could be at your
ISP, or it could be elsewhere. (See the explanation
above, but if you're consistently getting Bandwidth
Speed Test results that are substantially below expectations,
the root problem is most likely your ISP's fault.
While your dial-up modem, DSL,
ISDN or other Internet connection may be a dedicated line,
all of an ISP's connections get combined into one or more
shared connections. In most cases, these shared connections
have less capacity than the combined total of all the customer
connections they serve. Done judiciously, this works better
than you probably think. Since most Internet users spend
more time reading their email and Web pages than they do
downloading them, they're only using a fraction of their
connection's actual capacity. Overbooking allows an ISP
to combine several customer connections into a single link
that's smaller (and less expensive) than the combined total
of all the connections they serve, without reducing the
amount of data sent to a customer when they are downloading
data.
The problem is that some ISPs,
cable modem companies, and DSL providers take the overbooking
concept too far. They funnel so many connections into a
small combined connection that normal customer demand overwhelms
the capacity of the combined connection. This is a particular
problem during peak use hours, when line speeds can slow
to a crawl.
Unfortunately, there is no
remedy for this problem. As competition in the high-bandwidth
Internet connection business heats up, you'll have more
options and your ISP will have more incentive to maintain
more reasonable overbooking ratios. Until that time, however,
your only options are to complain to your ISP or switch
to another Internet provider with a better track record.
I
have a 56K modem. Why isn't my download speed even close
to 56K?
There could be several reasons--and
most of them aren't your ISP's fault.
First of all, static electricity
caused by radio signals, power lines, and other sources
interfere with most 56K modem signals, forcing them to fall
back to 42-50Kbps.
56K modems also require a clean,
straight through telephone connection to the telephone company's
central office switching center. Phone company line amplifiers
that boost a telephone signal over a long distance, PBX
switchboard systems, and other phone equipment alter the
phone signal and force 56K modems to fall back to speeds
of 33.6Kbps and lower.
Finally, the FCC doesn't allow
56K modems to use the full range of signals that phone company
equipment can generate. They're concerned that it'll cause
static interference to other phone lines.
So no 56K modem in the United
States ever connects at 56K. Most 56K modem users
seem to connect at speeds of 44-48Kbps.
(C) Copyright 1999 by Peter
John Harrison. All rights reserved. No part of this publication
(text or graphics) may be reproduced or distributed by any
means (electronic, photocopying, or otherwise) without the
prior written consent of the author. All brand names and
product names mentioned in this document are trademarks,
registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective
holders.
Raw Data:
If you're just dying to see
the raw data used to calculate your download speed, here
it is:
- download start time:
- download end time:
- download time:
- download size in thousands
of bytes:
- estimated line speed (K
bits per second):
- estimated line speed (K
bytes per second):
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