Speed Test

Ping is measured in milliseconds and indicates how long it takes for data packet to reach the target server and return to your device. This is called the latency.

While ping doesn’t affect your overall download speed, it’s particularly important for uses which require low latency.

A high ping would result in lag when playing online games, video calling or other actions which require information to travel quickly between your device and the target server.

A high ping wouldn’t necessarily be an issue when downloading music, videos or other large files, providing your download speed is fast enough.

Put simply, if your online gaming, watching live streams or video calling the lower your ping time the better.

Anywhere below 20ms is great. You’re unlikely to notice any lag and can expect responsive performance.

Up to 100ms puts you in the average range. While you may experience lag occasionally, most of the time you can still expect a good experience.

A result of 100ms or above would likely result in noticeable lag.

At 300ms or above, services which require low latency are very likely to be unusable.

Jitter is a measurement of variance in your ping time.

For example, a jitter time of 5ms would mean that the ping measurement fluctuates by 5ms. A jitter measurement of 0ms would indicate that every packet of data takes the same amount of time to travel from your device to the target server.

As with ping, the lower your jitter measurement the better.

Jitter below 30ms is usually acceptable for most use cases. Anything above this may cause noticeable dips in performance.

Upload speed is a measurement of how fast you can send data from your device to the internet.

Depending on your use case, your upload speed may be more or less important.

Steaming videos or audio, downloading large files and online gaming are unlikely to be unaffected by a low download speed.

Upload speed becomes more important when you need to transfer large files to a remote server, for example when backing up large amounts of data or saving your photos to a cloud storage platform.

Download speed is a measurement of how quickly you can download data from a remote server.

If you are downloading 4K videos or large applications, a good download speed quickly becomes important. It’s also important to have a good download speed if you have multiple users as any available bandwidth is shared between all of the devices on your network.

Firstly, it’s important to narrow down the cause of slow internet speeds.

By using a wired connection directly to your router, you eliminate any WiFi issues which give you an accurate result of your broadband performance.

If you are still experiencing slow speeds, it’s worth considering some additional options:

The simplest way to reduce your ping is to switch to Ethernet rather than using WiFi connections. You’ll instantly notice an improvement in most cases.

Close unused applications and disconnect unused devices. Many devices often connect to services in the background and use your available bandwidth.

If you are still experiencing a high ping you should consider speaking with your Internet Service Provider and look at advanced router/network configuration settings which could help to improve performance.