Learn how to correctly measure the speed of your Internet connection. What resources can you use to correctly check the Internet, what parameters should you look at, and how to determine whether the result in front of you is good.
I’ll definitely tell you about Megabit and Megabyte, they are often confused, and I’ll also tell you what ping is and why people often get kicked out of online games because of it. In general, I will show in detail how to find out the Internet speed on a computer.
Introduction
Hello everyone, today I decided to write an article that will allow me to qualitatively analyze the speed of my Internet connection. You can find a lot of materials from different sources, where one way or another it is shown where to go and what numbers to look at. But now you have repeated all this on your computer, you have seen numbers, large or small, with different units of measurement.
You sit, look at them, sometimes even rejoice, but what do these data mean? It was displayed to you, for example: Input - 10 Mbit/s, Output - 5 Mbit/s, Ping - 14 and what next, is this good for you, or if you honestly look at it, then you will say that these numbers have nothing to do with you do not speak? And in most cases, everything is exactly like this, we see the result, but we cannot analyze it, because we do not know what each direction means.
Funny conversation with a friend
In general, I decided to write an article on this topic just yesterday. I was talking with an acquaintance, and it so happened that we started talking about the Internet. He asks me - Vanek, what is your Internet speed? Well, I said, I pay 300 rubles for 8 MB/s. Without hesitation, the acquaintance replied, well, what bullshit is your Internet, I have 30 Mbit/s for only 250 rubles. This whole thing was said with such a smart look, I couldn’t restrain myself, I laughed, when I walked away, I immediately thought - this is the topic for a new article.
Users who understand have already figured out what the catch is, and for those who didn’t catch it, read the article carefully and absorb useful knowledge. For probably another 15 minutes I had to explain to my friend that he made a little mistake with his choice of the Internet and the money he pays can be spent more wisely armed good internet. I won’t mutter too much, let’s move on.
How is Internet speed measured?
In order to understand and correctly analyze the speed of Internet connections, you need to have a good understanding of the units of measurement that you will actually use to measure your Internet in the future.
This is very important, it’s a must, well, it’s absolutely necessary, it’s necessary, there’s simply no other way. After all, when you come to the store, you tell the seller how many kilograms of apples to sell you, or you yourself calculate how many kilograms of potatoes you need to buy so that there is enough for at least a week for the whole family, you even tritely calculate how many grams of candy to buy so that you have enough money to pay. Now let's get down to business.
When you start wondering about the Internet, you come across two units of measurement - Megabits and Megabytes. Let's go in order.
The MEGA prefix is a million-dollar prefix, you don’t need to pay attention to them Special attention, this is just a reduction, replacing the number 10 to the 6th power. Once again, we don’t look at the console, we follow everything that is written next, namely, we look at the BITS and BYTES. (megaBIT, mega BYTE)
A bit is the smallest unit of measurement used in calculations in the “computer world”, think of a bit as one unit - 1
A byte is naturally also a unit of measurement, but it contains 8 bits, which means a byte is eight times larger than a bit.
Once again, a BYTE is 8 bits.
Examples. When testing Internet speed, you may be shown:
30 Mbit/s or 3.75 MB/s, where you should understand that these are two identical numbers. That is, when you took measurements and were shown the result in megabits, you can safely divide it by 8 and get real result. In our example, 30 Mbit/8= 3.75 MB
You haven’t forgotten about my conversation with a friend, now you can go back and see why I didn’t agree with my friend, what was his mistake? Look, count, it will be useful for consolidation.
In addition to units of measurement, for proper analysis of an Internet connection, you need to know that there are two types of connections. Incoming and outgoing.
It’s not at all difficult, but you have to read it once just to know. Incoming information is everything that you download to your computer, watch online, listen to music, in general, everything that you view on the Internet will be called incoming traffic.
But when your computer transmits information, let’s say you play an online game and small packets of information are necessarily sent from your computer, which control the actions in the game, or for example, you upload a photo to social network, all of this will be considered outgoing traffic.
Remember:
All we take on the Internet is incoming traffic.
Everything we send to the Internet is outgoing traffic.
Now little advice, when analyzing, you can not pay attention to outgoing traffic. Why? Because if the incoming Internet connection is good, the outgoing one will automatically be good. They come in a complex, but you need to remember that the speed of incoming information is always higher, sometimes even twice as high, but this is not scary.
When measuring your Internet speed, you will see pictures like this and this is normal:
I think the numbers are more or less understood and now you can easily analyze the speed of your Internet connection as accurately as possible. Although it’s probably worth making a small digression to suggest what speed will be enough and for what purpose.
What kind of internet do I need for stable operation?
Here is a table that will serve as a hint to this question, and if you don’t understand, then write in the comments to this article, as soon as I see it, I’ll immediately write the answer.
| Task | Internet connection speed | Classification |
|---|---|---|
| Viewing text and graphic information | 10 Mbit/s or 1 MB/s | Slow Internet |
| Watch online movies, listen to music, play, chat on Skype | From 20 Mbit/s to 40 Mbit/s | Good, multitasking. |
| Working on the Internet, downloading large amounts of information, videos High Quality and other high loads | From 80 Mbit/s and above | Universal for all occasions |
I often hear the question, but with the Internet like this, how long will it take me to download a movie? To be honest, such questions irritate me a little, if you know how to count, then why not do it, this is forgivable for adults and elderly people of the previous generation, but now young people should be educated and instantly give out the information of interest, so in the article I won’t even write about this, but just in case, I will show the principle of calculation in the video, so after finishing reading the text, do not be lazy to spend a couple of minutes watching the video.
And besides this, you should always remember that a virus can get onto your computer and the speed will be reduced several times,
Where can you test your Internet speed?
As I said at the beginning, there are a lot of different resources that provide the opportunity, so to speak, to weigh and measure your Internet. But as practice shows, only a few of them work stably and can provide correct information and not fantasize...
yandex.ru/internet- for me this is the best resource for measuring the Internet.
speedtest.net/ru/ is a mega popular site for determining speed, but it works fine for me only after the second scan. After the first time it doesn't show real numbers, so I immediately run it a second time and get a normal, real result.
2ip.ru/speed/— the site can do a lot of useful things, I like it, but unfortunately it often cheats with Internet measurements, but it gives some useful information, by whom it is served, which provider and where the service site is located.
By the way, I took examples of pictures from these sites, in the video I will show each site separately, and you yourself will choose which one you like best. When you analyze the results, you may notice another interesting parameter - Ping.
What is ping on the Internet?
This parameter can often be heard, especially among those who like to play Online Games. These types of people, to be honest, are a little obsessed with pings during the game.
Even 7-8 years ago I had a case when I entered the game myself, as I remember now - it was Counter-Strike. Well, I came in, I’m playing, I hear a lot of fuss, shouting and discontent, and in every sentence they shout, he has a high ping, let’s kick him out. And in fact, they kicked me out of the room by general vote; of course, I was not very happy, but there was nothing to do.
That day I spent several hours studying the cursed word ping at that time.
But in fact, the essence of its work is very simple, I will not load your heads, but will only say that this is also a unit of measurement that shows the speed of data transfer from your computer to the server.
Now, quite simply, you entered the game, at the moment when you perform some action for you, the character simply makes a movement. And from the technical side, in order to even simply move your character from place, the computer must send a command (packet of files) to the server, and the time during which these files will fly to the server, be processed there and return back will be called ping.
In fact, Ping is the speed of data exchange between the computer and the server.
What does ping depend on, and how can it be lowered?
Everything here is quite simple, the first and main reason is the physical distance between your computer and the game server. For example, you play in Moscow, and the server is in China, the distance is very long and therefore it takes more time to transmit data packets. And at this moment we are swearing that the game is lagging.
Naturally, the ping will be affected by the speed of your Internet; the faster the connection, the lower the ping will be. Next you need to understand that ping may increase if the transmission line is overloaded, that is, your provider serves not just your apartment, but whole house or the street, and if everyone decides to surf the Internet at the same time, then there will be a little chaos.
Rational use of traffic is when you are sitting at home on the Internet via Wi-Fi, playing, and at the same time your parents are watching TV series via the same Wi-Fi, your little sister is sitting on a tablet next room and plays his games. The more people use the access point at the same time, the lower the Internet speed becomes and the ping increases accordingly.
There are three ways to lower your ping:
- Change provider or tariff plan to a more powerful one
- Make some changes to the operating system registry (the improvement is not significant)
- Loading specialized software. (we immediately throw this method out of our heads and use the first two)
Have you figured out what's what? I think you all understood a long time ago, so I’ll wrap it up. Below you can find a video to reinforce the material you have read, don’t be lazy, you have to watch it.
Watch video: How to find out the Internet speed on your computer?
Well, have you finished reading? Then we go below and write our comment on this article, otherwise how will I know whether you have read it at all or not? See you soon, bye friends.
Prostoweb decided to learn the secrets of measuring and globally testing the Internet speed offered by your Internet provider, using special programs and testing services: Speedtest or Speedtest, 2ip.ru, Realspeed. What is my internet speed? - after all, this question worries many Internet users. Let's study internet speed test together!
How is Internet speed measured?
Therefore, in reality, “speed or Internet speed measurement” is nothing more than the speed of data transfer on the network, which depends on many factors.
This speed is measured in physical units, as the ratio of transmission time to the volume of transmitted information. Many have heard about such indicators as Kbit/sec, Mbit/sec, Gigabit/sec; they, like the speed of a car, show how quickly the desired file from the network or web page will “reach” us.
A byte is a unit of storage and processing of digital information.
- 1 Byte = 8 bits. It is to the byte that increasingly large amounts of information are calculated in computer technology.
- 1 kilobyte (KB) = 1024 bytes.
- 1 megabyte (MB) = 1024 KB. It is used to measure the volume of storage media.
- 1 gigabyte (GB) = 1024 MB.
Data transfer speed (connection speed) is measured in kilobits per second (Kbps). Megabits per second (Mbps) = 1024 Kbps.
Beginning Internet users often confuse kilobits with kilobytes. Therefore, let's look at an example. Let's imagine that in our tariff plan the Internet speed is 0.5 Megabit/s or 512 Kbit (Kb) per second. If we convert the speed into kilobytes, we get 512 Kbit/8 = 64 Kbytes/s. This is exactly the maximum speed that should be expected when displaying download speed in download managers or torrent clients.
In reality, the speed will always be slightly lower than stated in your provider's tariff plan. If you need to convert one unit of measurement of connection speed to another, use an online calculator that will help you with this.
To illustrate the connection speed indicators, let's imagine a typical web page that takes up 100 kilobytes, a song - an average of 3072 kilobytes (3 megabytes), a movie - 1,572,864 kilobytes (1.5 gigabytes). Let's make a table of the dependence of download speed on Internet speed.
Download speed | 56 kbps | 256 kbps | 1 Mbit/s | 16 Mbit/s | 100 Mbit/s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Web page | |||||
Song | |||||
Movie |
How to test internet speed
In most cases, you have to pay for Internet access speed. And the higher it is, the more expensive it costs us. The main thing that should concern every user is whether we really get what we pay for. There are several groups of software products to check and control Internet speed.
Online tests
These are sites that host scripts that show your speed relative to a site. It should be noted that the readings from these sites are subject to error. Even with two consecutive tests, you can get results that differ by 20-30%. To increase the accuracy of tests, you need to turn off all programs that consume traffic. And also choose the tester that is closest to you geographically. It is useful to carry out a series of measurements at different times of the day, given that the test servers may be loaded at certain times of the day.
The most famous free sites for testing Internet speed:
- http://speedtest.net/ is one of the most famous services for testing Internet connection speed. To start the test, click “Begin Test” and get the download speed and file upload speed.
- http://2ip.ru/speed/ is a hoster that provides a huge number of tests and comprehensive information about your connection.
- http://www.speedtest.com.ua/speedtest-net.htm - a simplified version of speedtest.net.
- http://www.speedtest.com.ua/ is also a simple speed test on a Ukrainian domain. Click the “Start Test” button.
- http://realspeed.co.kz/ - another Russian-language tester.
- http://www.numion.com/YourSpeed/ - this tester can show summary statistics for 25 measurements and also allows you to check speeds relative to servers in different countries peace.
Programs for determining and testing Internet speed that require installation on a PC
There are very few such programs, because it is better to test the Internet loading speed between your computer and a remote server, which are the sites described above.
Speed test is The best way checking the speed and quality of your Internet connection. Have you noticed that your files are loading at a slower speed? Do you feel like the websites you visit are loading too slowly? Check your Internet connection settings. With our tester you can now measure:
- latency testing (ping, latency) – checks the average time of sending data packets to different servers simultaneously. Most testers only measure the sending time of small packets of data (less than 500 bytes), but in fact browsers and web applications typically transfer and download large packets of data, so our tester also tests the sending time of large packets (around 2-5 kilobytes). Result: the lower the ping, the better, i.e. allows you to use the Internet more comfortably. This parameter is especially important in online games.
- download testing - download speed is checked, which is measured as the total amount of downloaded data over a certain period of time (about 10 seconds) and is expressed in units of Mbit/s Testing is carried out for different places at the same time, since using only one server is not reflects the actual connection throughput. the site tries to show measurement results that are speed measurements beyond border routers. The download speed is important parameter, which determines the quality when watching movies on the Internet and the speed of downloading files.
- Sending testing (upload) – the speed of data sending is checked, just as in the case of download testing, the parameter is important, for example, when sending data to the server and email messages with especially big investments, for example, photographs.
Latest Speed Test News
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Any person connected to global network(and these days there are most of them) sooner or later the question arises - how to check internet speed for free? Someone wants to test the new tariff of their provider - isn't it cheating? Does the stated speed match the actual speed? Others need to accurately measure the Internet connection speed in Mbps in order to decide whether it will meet the needs of the family when switching to Wi-Fi or whether something more powerful is needed. Well, the rest are simply worried about the question of whether to leave the torrent downloading the latest series overnight, whether it will have time to download, and they need to know how to measure the Internet speed on their computer. IN general question This one is relevant, and our article today will be the answer to it.
How to Test Internet Speed Using Speedtest
The simplest and most effective thing is to check your Internet speed online using the Speedtest service. It's absolutely free, fast and accurate.
Speedtest(Speedtest) is a reputable online service for testing Internet speed, with the ability to configure language, units of measurement, server, etc., as well as save and compare your results (for registered users). The developer of Speedtest is Ookla. Today, Speedtest is actually one of the best Internet speed meters. This not advertising, our editors themselves use Speedtest and are happy with it so far.
How to check Internet speed with Speedtest? Simply and easily. We go to the Russian version of the site - speedtest.net/ru You will see a stylish green picture of the meter depicting the continents of our planet indicating your current location.
On home page Speedtest displays your current location, IP address, provider and, most importantly, a “Start Test” button for network speed
speedtest.net/ru
You can click anywhere on the map at the bottom of the picture and then select any item (a bright white dot) on the enlarged portion of the map at the top. When you hover over a point with the cursor, it will appear server list, from which you can choose any one and check the Internet speed on it.
You can choose any available server to test your network speed
The image uses a screenshot from the site speedtest.net/ru
A green circle with a triangle indicates your current location with the nearest server. It is determined automatically. By clicking on the triangle, you can also select another server from the list that appears.
But you can leave everything as it is. If you just want to quickly check the speed of your Internet connection, do not change the default settings.
Please note that in the lower left corner information with your IP address and the name of the provider. This may be helpful. If you left-click on an IP address, it will automatically be copied to the clipboard.
The opposite right corner displays the ever-changing number of Internet speed tests for today. Tens of millions of checks... a lot! This already speaks volumes about the credibility of the service.
And, most importantly, at the top there is a big green button “ Start checking" We click on it. In this case, it is advisable to disable all programs that use the network, and not switch the test tab.
Decoding Internet speed test results by Speedtest
So, you press the button and the service will begin testing the speed of your Internet connection. You'll have to wait a couple of minutes. Finally an information window will appear with inspection results Internet connection speed.
Speedtest network speed test results: ping, reception and transmission speed
The image uses a screenshot from the site speedtest.net/ru
Let's decipher this data:
- ping– this is the period of time during which information (network data packet) from your computer reaches the server and returns to you. Ping is measured in thousandths of a second - milliseconds (ms, ms). The smaller it is, the better;
- receiving speed– that is, download speed, in Mbit/s;
- transmission speed– upload speed, transferring data from your computer to another computer. Also measured in Mbit/s. Naturally, the higher the transmission speed and reception speed, the better.
Additionally, you can test the quality of your Internet connection. Another service of this company is designed for this - Pingtest. We will talk about it and ping checking in more detail in the next article.
In the meantime, use Speedtest to monitor and check the speed of your Internet connection. And if there is a significant discrepancy with the declared speed of the tariff, feel free to contact your provider with a demand to correct the problem and provide you with the promised speed.
Don't forget about other ways to speed up the Internet, for example by.
Good luck and fast Internet!
We have other interesting articles!
Hello, site readers IT lessons. Today we will deal with the popular question “ How to correctly measure the speed of an Internet connection?“Everyone is interested to know whether we are getting those megabits per second that we paid for and why sometimes files or sites loadoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooossssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssyour your your your yours your your your you you you you you you you your you you you you pay for yourself" and you your your your your your yours and why sometimes files or websites will load very slowly...
In this IT lesson you will need the knowledge gained in the previous two lessons: “” and “”
Of course, you would like to press one button and quickly find out your speed... this is also possible, but the accuracy will be low. In addition, you need to take into account some factors that affect the data transfer speed and the result of its testing.
The lesson is big, if you need to find something specific, you can use the content:
What affects Internet speed?
First, let's look at what can affect the quality of Internet connection speed measurements. And there are many such factors:
- Speed, with whom you contact when checking your Internet speed (this can also include the speed of access to the site from which you are downloading something)
- Speed and settings if your computer is connected to local network through him
- Working on the computer at the time of verification
- Antiviruses and firewalls running in the background
- Computer and operating system settings
In most cases, the most important item on this list will be the first item - server speed. Let me give you a few illustrative examples.
Example 1.
If you connect your computer to the local network using a cable (twisted pair), then connection speed with another computer on the same network(in your city) will be very large, for example, 70 Mbit/s
.
Example 2.
Now we measure the speed between our computer and some server at the other end of the country. Maybe we'll get about 20 Mbit/s
.
Example 3.
Let’s imagine that all 800 regular readers of the IT lessons site connected to this server at once and began downloading different files. Communication speed with a busy server will decrease and for you it will be, for example, 3 Mbit/s
.
Example 4.
Now let's try to download the file from a server in another country, for example, in Australia, we get less 1 Mbps!
Now, I think it’s clear that the measured speed depends on which server you chose to test: its location, its own maximum speed and his workload. That is, you need to understand that:
The speed of all servers (containing sites and files) is different and depends on the capabilities of these servers.
The same applies to other points (for example, the connection speed will differ when connecting to the network directly or through a router, and will also depend on the characteristics of this router).
How to improve verification accuracy
It is advisable to follow these steps if you want to get the most accurate result of checking your Internet connection speed. If approximate measurements are enough for you, you can move on to the next section of the lesson.
- Connect network cable directly to the computer(V )
- Close all programs, except for the browser (in which there should be one bookmark with this IT lesson)
- Stop programs downloading in the background(torrent clients, download managers, etc.), except those you chose to test Internet speed
- Temporarily disable your antivirus (don't forget to turn it on later), because... in some cases it may affect online test results.
- Launch Task Manager (hold down the Ctrl+Shift+Esc keys at the same time) and go to the “Network” tab. Make sure the network is not overloaded (“Network Usage” should be less than 1%). If the network is being actively used, a program or Windows may be updating. In this case, wait until the downloads finish or restart your computer.
Network usage in task manager (green line jump - process of checking Internet connection speed)
In addition, every the measurement must be carried out several times to improve testing accuracy.
How to measure Internet connection speed
There are several ways to measure the speed of your Internet connection. Let's consider them in order of increasing complexity of use.
- Online services
Since we are now at the “Beginner” level, we will consider the first method in detail, and for experienced users I will briefly describe the remaining two.
Method 1. Measuring speed using online services
This is the one the easiest way to measure“Press one button and find out everything quickly.” The accuracy is relative, but the simplicity is attractive. 🙂
note that online tests have different accuracy!
I will tell you only about the most popular services.
SPEEDTEST.NET
Let's start with the most popular and most accurate online test to check Internet speed(and it’s free, too). I will dwell on it in more detail and advise all readers of the site to use this method first.
Here's a quick guide:
2. Find the button " Start checking" and press it:
Click the "Start Scan" button
3. At the end of testing, you see three results:
First number indicated by the word “Ping” (read “ping”), means network packet transmission time. The smaller this number, the better quality connections (preferably less than 100 ms).
The second number is the data acquisition speed. This is exactly the figure that providers advertise when connecting (it is for these megabits per second that you pay your honestly earned rubles/hryvnia/dollars/yuan :)).
The third number is the data transfer speed. As you can see, it can be noticeably lower than the receiving speed, but the provider is silent about this (but, in most cases, high outgoing Internet speed is rarely required).
If you want to measure the speed of your Internet connection to a specific city, then select it on the map (all major cities on the planet are available) and click the “Start Test” button again.
This way, you can check the examples I gave for yourself.
The creator of the “speed test” has another interesting online service that checks Internet connection qualityhttp://pingtest.net/.
There are many more on the company's main website interesting opportunities for testing network connections http://www.ookla.com/.
Other online Internet speed testing services
The principle of operation for all services is the same: press a button, wait, get a number... but the results are different.
2. Add several downloads from different fast file servers, for example this (test archive) and this (Linux distribution)
3. Set it in the settings maximum number of threads(sections for downloading)
4. We monitor the maximum speed file uploads:
The maximum speed achieved is highlighted in the image with a red rectangle.
What speed do you need to download movies?
We have learned how to measure the speed of data transfer over the Internet, now let’s see where this can be applied.
Let's say we want to download average quality movie, which usually takes 1.4 Gigabytes. Let's calculate at different speeds:
- Speed 100 kbps– about 32 hours (it’s better not to wait for the movie to download using the mobile Internet)
- Speed 1 Mbit/s– This movie will take 3 hours to load
- Speed 3 Mbit/s– 1 hour download
- Speed 15 Mbit/s– less than 15 minutes to load
- Speed 50 Mbit/s– about 4 minutes
- Speed 100 Mbit/s– about 2 minutes
Compare with time music downloads(for example, an mp3 file in good quality, about 10 MB):
- Speed 100 kbps– less than 15 minutes of loading
- Speed 1 Mbit/s– 1.5 minutes loading
- Speed 3 Mbit/s– 0.5 minutes
At the same time, it is worth remembering that there is a guaranteed speed and a speed not guaranteed by the provider (we dealt with this in the IT lesson).
Bottom line
So, today we learned how to check the speed of the Internet (Internet connection) in three ways. We learned that in addition to speed, we also need to take into account the quality of communication, which is indicated by “ping” (we will deal with this separately). They also clearly assessed what speed would be sufficient to download a movie. Thus, we have completed the topic of units of measurement of information and data transfer speed. What's next?
Have you already guessed? Of course, a test! This time there will be few questions, but I advise you to re-read (including this one). If you're ready, here you go
Copying prohibited, but you can share links.
