Download speed broadband test

Find out how your internet speed is performing, plus consider using our bandwidth calculator tool to understand what your household needs to run at its most optimal. In the past 30 days over 10,, people have used speed tests to see their download speeds, upload speeds, and ping.

Press "Start Test" below to get started testing your connection. In this chart we show the average download speed across all users who ran a speed test in the last 12 months. Our speed test tool is designed to help you understand how your internet connection performs on a daily basis. As you can see from the data above, internet speeds are improving across the country in For a more detailed comparison, you can also view average speed test results for internet providers in New York , Denver , Atlanta , and every other city in the U.

At the 10—25 Mbps level, you should have little to no trouble performing basic tasks online, as well as streaming HD content.

Keep in mind that large families or users with many devices may still experience slower-than-expected performance. Using WiFi can also reduce your performance in this range.

Speeds of around 25 Mbps should be sufficient for the average internet user. Speeds above 50 Mbps should be more than enough for the majority of internet users, regardless of the task at hand. You can stream HD or even 4K content with ease, use multiple devices at once, and download large files without prohibitive download times.

For one, it could potentially save you some money. Yes, really. You may be paying for more speed than you actually need, and these additional fees could be costing you month after month.

Running our internet speed test is the best way to determine if your provider is actually holding up their end of the bargain. This will often solve the issue, but not always. Keep in mind that using WiFi tends to reduce performance. The speeds advertised by internet providers are based on the speed you get with a device wired directly to the router using an ethernet cable.

Before you start the test, there are a few things you can do to ensure you get the most accurate results. In order to better understand your internet speed test, it is vital to know the difference between upload speed and download speed. Upload speed refers to how quickly your connection can send something data, in this case from your device to the wider internet. This number is often not the one heavily advertised by service providers online, and this is on purpose.

In short, most activities online do not require high upload speeds. Some do, however, including Skype and other video chat services, online gaming, and large cloud storage applications like Dropbox and Google Drive.

Download speed refers to how quickly your connection can retrieve data from a website or server online. Streaming multiple TV shows or movies at the same time especially 4K media and downloading large files are both examples of activities that require higher download speeds than average. Determining how much internet speed you actually need is really a matter of how you use the internet on a daily basis.

For instance, a power user in a large family who all frequently stream movies and shows, play games, and download large files is going to need a higher download speed to accommodate them. Meanwhile, someone living in a one or two-person apartment who just checks email and occasionally watches a show on Netflix will need far less. For more information, be sure to check out our guide to determining how much internet speed you need.

Depending on the activity, your device will need different connection speeds to operate smoothly. When downloading large files, the more speed, the better. Let's test the speed to your computer We'll measure the speed from our servers to this computer. Start Test. More About Speed. What does this speed test measure? How are coverage and Internet speed related? Tips to Improve Coverage. How does my Gateway modem or router impact Internet speed?

How does my device affect Internet speed? But before we get to these, we first want to discuss how to perform each test. The download measurement is performed by opening multiple connections to a server and simultaneously starting the download of a large data file on all connections. This approach ensures that the entire bandwidth of the internet connection is maxed out, and thereby the maximum data throughput can be measured. Recording the data throughput against measurement time finally yields the available internet speed for downloading data.

Upload speed is tested by reversing the sequence of the download analysis. Again multiple connections are opened to the test server. Instead of downloading a file, a large file of random data is created on your device and pushed through all connections to the server. Pushing the data to the server over the network via multiple streams ensures that the maximum throughput is measured.

Again, recording the data throughput against time yields the available internet speed for uploading data. During the ping test, the device sends a small data package over the network to the test server on the internet. When the server receives this package, it will send it back to the device, completing the roundtrip.

The time it takes the data package to complete the roundtrip is called latency, also known as ping. To achieve an accurate reading, multiple ping tests are conducted consecutively, with the final result being the average of all these tests. All these are automatically handled for you when using Speedcheck. But you should take one crucial aspect into account to test speed accurately.

Choose the right tool. This depends on the device you want to use, being a phone or tablet, or a computer. To check internet speed on a computer, use your browser and the app on this website.