Does your internet feel slow? Perform a speed test and find out what you’re really getting!
How does an internet speed test work?
PING / Jitter
Ping measures the minimum time required to send the smallest amount of data and receive a response, while jitter measures the intervals of time when data packets arrive. For gaming, a sub-100ms ping would be considered ‘good’ and anything below 30ms for jitter would mean you’re doing A-ok. If you’re not a gamer, download and upload speeds will likely be your main concern.
- First, your computer sends a small of amount of data to the speed test’s server. After receiving, the server sends a reply. This ‘to and fro’ is calculated as ping while the consistency of time between data arriving is jitter.
How does ping / jitter measurement work?
Download Speed
Pretty straight-forward, but this is the time it takes to download a predefined amount of data.
- Your computer establishes a connection with the speed test servers and then receives data from several different connections. After the data’s finished downloading, it calculates the time taken to complete this process.
How does download measurement work?
Upload Speed
Similar, but opposite, to download speed, it’s the time it takes to upload data from the speed test server to your computer.
- Same as above, but the other way around! Your computer establishes a connection with the speed test server and then sends data to this server. After the data’s finished uploading, it calculates the time it’s taken to upload.
How does Upload measurement work?
Average Bandwidth Needed
- 2 – 5 Mbps: Lowest speed you should chat, video call, stream music, and browse with, but things may slow down with higher resolution images, music, or videos.
- 2 – 5 Mbps: 5 – 10 Mbps: Lowest speed you should use to stream on services such as Netflix, Disney+, YouTube, etc. at a regular video resolution (720p or so), or to play online games on low to medium video settings.
- 10 – 20 Mbps: Decent speed to stream higher resolution videos and to download games.
- 20 – 50 Mbps: Very good speed for video calls, streaming movies at high resolution, and downloading games and large files.
- 50 – 100 Mbps: Have a family that loves to jump on the net together? (here’s looking at you, teenagers!) Excellent bandwidth to ensure everyone enjoys their internet experience at the same time.
- 150 Mbps: For those who are serious about gaming, this is the connection for you. Our Gamer150 includes symmetrical download/upload, special VLAN for prioritized traffic, custom routing, and a public static IP. Serious internet for serious gamers.
- 150 – 300 Mbps: For those sharing large files or sharing a connection with many users or devices.
Summing up, the most important factors will be a) how many users in your household and what they do on the internet. Tabulate your required bandwidth to make sure your household stays internet-hog blame-game free!
