Network Speed

This column bothers me. Basically, because it did not even come close to turning out the way I thought it would.

I wrote about network speeds the first of this year as I get questions regarding the topic often. However, a question to me from Jessica recently got me to test something I had not heard of, “Network Speed Test” by Microsoft.

People want to know if they are paying for 50 Mbps (short for megabits per second the units used to measure transfer speed) how can they tell if that is what they are getting. The simple answer is, “That’s easy.” The honest answer is that I am not sure how easy it is any longer.

I previously wrote about a site (SpeedTest.net) and downloadable software by Ookla a well-respected name in the business. This was mine and many other geeks go-to app for checking your download and upload speeds. (Search my site for, “How fast are you surfing”, my original column.)

I thought it was great that MS has their own version so I downloaded it and started comparing it against the Ookla apps. Then I got a headache. The upload speeds for both were almost identical. Upload speed is how fast you send data up to the web…not vital to most users. However, the download speeds (very important for all web activity) was slower with the MS app by 10 times.

For instance, I just ran them now and Speedtest by Ookla show my D/L speed 41 Mbps and MS app was 4.03 Mbps. That is a huge difference. I thought maybe I read it wrong as the measurement can be in MBps (notice the capital “B” for megaBYTES, not megaBITS as above) which would be correct but that was not the case. They were both using Mbps.

I proceed to check my speeds on a total of ten, speed checking sites. All thought to be fairly accurate according to the Tech-World. I will not list them here but if you care to see the list go to DoubleClicks.info and I have them listed at the end of this article.

The results with upload speeds were again consistent within a few points of each other. The downloads indicated three of them around 14-18 Mbps, six ranging from 34-42 Mbps and Microsoft Network Speed Test at 5.84 Mbps (the highest I recorded over many multiple random trials). Keep in mind that you can run the test ten times with the same app and get various answers and the higher the number the better. The speed goes up and down normally and also depends on how many devices you have on your network. Along with where your testing machine is in relation to your wi-fi signal (like four rooms away behind walls, etc.). Also, I have no equipment that can accurately measure the speeds so this is not “scientific” but the best I could produce.

So, what is my answer to tell what your speed is?

Watch several videos at your favorite site. Like Amazon Prime, Hulu, Netflix, etc. and see if it looks and sounds clear. Look for any strange pauses (called buffering as the video tries to catch up with a slow signal) or any pixelation (very small squares of color in the picture). If you have any of those you could have a speed issue. If so, call your internet service provider and question them. If not, enjoy life.

In alphabetical order, the speed testing sites I tried out are below. Try them out and check your results:

1. BandWidthPlace.com
2. Network Speed Test (by Microsoft)
3. SpeedTest.net (by Ookla)
4. SpeedTest App (by Ookla) 
5. SpeakEasy.net
6. SpeedOf.me (this is the best-looking one to me) 
7. SpeedTest.att.com (by AT&T)
8. Speedtest.Googlefiber.net (by Google) 
9. Speedtest.Xfinity.com (by Comcast/Xfinity)
10. TestMy.net