Is Your Internet Fast?

Everyone has an Internet connection in today’s world (in this blog post I am focusing on the USA).  Some people have Satellite, DSL, Cable, or Wireless (e.g. phone), and I suppose there are a few people out there who have dial-up connections.  Many users pay for multiple Internet connections, I am thinking of those who pay for data plans on their phones and pay for Internet in their homes through cable or other means.  As for me, I have Charter’s cable internet at my home and I have internet access through my iPhone.

When buying access to the Internet you can pay very little ($10 per month) or pay a lot ($150 per month).  One of Netzero’s commercials said, “…All Internet Service Providers take you to the same Internet so why pay more”? So how can there be such a difference in price?  The answer is: speed.  Internet speed is measured (for most household consumers) by “kilobits per second” (kbps) or “megabits per second” (mbps).  A kilobit is 1,000 bits; not to be confused with a kilobyte which is 1,000 bytes where a “byte” is equal to 8 bits.  So kilobit is 1,000 bits and a kilobyte is about 8,000 bits.  And a bit is the basic unit of information for computing.

Dial-up Internet is the slowest at 56 kbps and that’s why it’s the cheapest ($10 per month).  Fiber Optic cable connection to the Internet can reach speeds at around 50 mbps but are 15 times more expensive ($150 per month) than dial-up.  Although the Fiber Optic will give you Internet speeds 1,000 times faster than dial-up.  I have Charter Communications cable Internet at 16 mbps for downloading.  (Note: this blog post will only cover download speeds)  However just because I pay for 16 mbps service from Charter does not mean that I always get it.  That is why I suggest checking your Internet speed on a regular basis.  I have listed below four different sites that test your Internet connection speed.  Click on a picture below to go to that site to check your speed.  The images below show actual tests I did on my connection at home.

When this CNET one opens you need to fill in some fields before you can run the test.

When the AT&T one opens you will need to “rerun” the test to get the right results.

The Charter one will only work if you are a Charter Internet customer.

Speettest will allow you to choose the server you use to test your connection.  Very important!

As you can see from my results I have speeds ranging from 2.5 mbps to 20 mbps.  Now, I pay for 16 mbps from Charter but as the results show your speed is never a fixed thing.  Depending on Internet traffic, technical difficulties, and server distance your speed may be less than advertised (sometimes much less).  What’s great about Speedtest.net is that you can pick servers close to you and you can see that you get good speed, then as you choose servers farther and farther away from you you will see your speed drop.  My speed from CNET (show in 1st image above) is probably due to the fact that CNET is headquartered in San Francisco, CA,  I was testing a server from California.  That is quite a distance compared with the test to a server in St. Louis.

So the moral of the story is this: you can pay for any Internet speed you like but remember that the advertised speed is only an estimate based on the best-case conditions, and we all know that the world rarely has a best-case condition.