If you really want to test your “Internet” speed, always try a remote server. This is because it is where your data travels most of the time. Imagine a speed test server located inside your home, on your LAN. Depending on your LAN speed you will get 100 Mbps or 300 Mbps, but it will not show you the real picture.
These days these ISPs do the same. They will host a speed test server at their own speed so that when their person comes to you to show you the internet speed or test yourself, without thinking, select the default server, and it will show the speed promised by your ISP.
ISPs Peer
ISPs stare at each other for data transfer. There are many business deals involved, so sometimes they have to pay a high price for data transfer, while you want 100 Mbps speeds and don’t want to pay too much. It goes with your ISP. International bandwidth is expensive, and they want to make money while giving you “lightning speed”.
They buy 10 Gbps tap and sell 100 Mbps connection to 10000 people. They also install a speed test server in their data centre so that you do not complain at low speeds. So, when people are really trying to download stuff from a distant place, they get bad speed. The same is true of speed testing, so you see those “real” results.
You have often noticed that the internet speed is kept at 16 Mbps according to your plan, but in reality, the speed you get is only 2-3 Mbps. What is the reason?
Your software usually measures the internet speed in Mbps, so the difference is expressed by dividing by eight because of 1 MB (megabyte) = 8 MBit (megabits).
More possibilities of the speed test results variation
- Sometimes, the speed of your internet is not completely your own, it is also based on the server, which sends the data. Therefore, for these reasons, it varies.
- Ping is the response time of the server, which is measured in milliseconds (ms). So, you may assume it as that higher ping time.
- Most of the speed test apps rely on different testing servers, hosted on different ISPs. If you are using different networks, potentially it will show the variation in results.
- One server may show higher bandwidth and higher latency between two different servers, while another one will show you the lower bandwidth and lower latency.
At any provided time, and particular routes between one internet service provider and another could diminish uptime or high packet loss due to the congested peers, especially when your ISP is not tier-1 and needs to purchase IP transit from one or larger ISPs.
Understanding Your Speed Test Results
Mbps: One megabit per second (or one million bits). You need eight megabytes per second to move a megabyte file. A digital photo, for example, can be one or two megabytes in size.
Download Speed: Download speeds referred to the data is delivered to your computer. This data is the mainly the information your computer can get from the Internet in a second. Download speeds can be measured in Mbps (megabits per second).
Upload speed: It is a reverse download speed, which measures the highest volume of information your computer can send to the Internet. The upload speed can also be measured in Mbps (megabits per second)
