This brief tutorial will show you how to test the speed of your Internet connection.

Many Internet Service Providers are playing the “we’re faster” game. That is, they claim to have faster speeds than their competitors. Common claims will be “Speeds up to xMB per second!” etc. Using a ’speed test’ you can find out what your actual upload and download speeds are.

1. Head over to the dslreports.com Flash Speed Test page. As the title suggests, you will need to have the Adobe Flash browser plugin installed (you probably do already). Note: before you run a speed test, make sure that any current uploads or downloads are finished. To get the most accurate results, you don’t want any of your bandwidth to be used while running the test.
2. Now select from the list of speed test sites. Choose the one closest to you that isn’t too ‘busy’ by clicking it once.


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3. An odometer will appear and the test will begin.



4. Upon completion of the test, the results will be displayed.



5. As indicated by the image above, my download speed was 1796Kb per second and my upload speed was 1874Kb per second. This is considerably less than my ISP claims. With that said, there are a number of factors that can affect your results. As mentioned earlier in this tutorial, if you have any uploads or downloads running at the time you take the test, your results will be lower than they should be. There may also be an unavoidable delay on the ‘path’ that data travels to get from the speed test server to your home computer. It’s best to run the test several times throughout the day (at different times) and compare results. Regardless of your connection time (dial-up, DSL or cable) – during the “peak” usage hours, speeds will almost certainly be slower.