7 interesting facts to know about speed tests

Whenever you want to know how fast or how slow your internet connection is, running speed tests is always a good idea. Have you ever run a speed check online? Do you want to learn surprising things related to this test? If that’s the case, this post is for you as right below here are 7 interesting facts to know about speed tests. 

The Internet speed test is so familiar that running it even becomes a habit for many of us. As we can’t perfectly engage in great online activities like online gaming, streaming, or video calling without good internet, a speed check is a good way to make sure that we have sufficient speed for doing things online. Though this test is extremely popular, there are interesting things about it that you might not know. Let’s see what they are right now!

Testing your internet speed is so simple and easy

Running speed test is a piece of cake …

Running this test is very simple and easy that any one of us can perform it successfully right from the first try. Everything we need to do is to open a speed test app if it’s available on your device or visit a speed check online site, press a button, and wait a few seconds for the results. It’s absolutely a piece of cake, right? 

… But run it the right way is not really simple

Yep, running a speed test is easy-peasy. But running it the right way to get accurate results takes you a little bit of time and effort. In fact, different things are affecting your speed check results. If you don’t run the test properly and perform enough tests, you might not be able to fully measure the internet speed that you are using. 

For example, you will get low-speed results if you test your speed while you are downloading large files or watching Netflix. That’s the reason why we are advised to close all unnecessary programs or applications before starting the test. Besides, there are other factors affecting the speed results that will be discussed in the next part of this writing.

A wide range of factors are affecting your speed test results

Your speed result’s accuracy is affected by both internal and external factors. Internal factors include the device you are using to run the test, the numbers of devices or users connecting to the network, the testing sites and testing servers you choose to run the test on, and more. 

About external factors, they can be the speed fluctuation during the day, especially in the peak hours, or the difference between speed results when running the test over the wireless connection and the wired one, etc. Because of these factors, you should perform the test the right way and avoid common mistakes when running the test so that you will get more accurate speed results. 

Low-speed test results don’t completely mean poor internet performance 

What if your speed results are so low? Does this fact mean that your speed connection is so bad? Not really. As mentioned above, your test results are affected by different factors. Running the test the wrong way will result in inaccurate results. Or even if you run it the right way but in peak hours, for example, you might find that the speed is much lower than it actually is. That’s also the reason why we mention the power of multiple tests right now. 

It’s necessary to run multiple speed tests

Power of multiple tests

Performing multiple speed checks is considered the key to accurately measure your internet connection. In fact, the results you get after running a speed check online just reflect the current performance of your internet network at the testing time. During the whole day, the speed can either fluctuate a little bit or even hugely fluctuate depending on the time you perform the test. So nothing is better than running the test multiple times so that we can have the full picture of how fast our connection really is. 

Furthermore, as we previously stated that various factors are affecting your test, and running multiple tests is a good way to minimize the effects of these factors on our speed results. To know more about how to run multiple speed tests properly, you can click here to know more.

Download speed is normally higher than upload speed

In almost all of the speed test results, we often see a faster download speed than upload speed. This is a normal fact because the majority of online activities these days need more bandwidth for downloading than uploading. In other words, we are spending a lot more time downloading than we do the uploading. Therefore, most ISPs have their systems to deliver higher Mbps of download speed than upload speed. Well, if you find that your download speed is always higher than upload speed, it’s nothing to surprise, right?

The distance between your device and the router really affects Wi-Fi signal strength

Wi-Fi speed results and wired speed results are not the same

If you want to fully measure your internet speed, you should run speed tests over a wired Ethernet connection which will produce more accurate results. About wireless connection, we all know that it is transmitted through the air, so the distance between you and the router as well as physical obstacles all affect the connection signal strength. 

That’s why testing the speed over the wireless connection often outputs lower results than testing over the wired connection. In case you need to measure your Wi-Fi speed, you should run the test in the same room as your router to ensure the accuracy of the test.

Conclusion

That’s all for today’s article of 7 interesting facts to know about speed tests. Though there’s nothing absolutely new about these facts and information, we still hope that they are all interesting and useful to you. Thank you for spending time reading this post!