How To Run A Broadband Test For Your Home Computer
If you are concerned that your internet connection speed is not what it could be and want to get a broadband test to make sure that everything is in order, do a simple search online and you will come up with many different sites that will offer you this broadband test for free.
What A Broadband Test Does
There are several things that a broadband test site can do to help you with your connection. The most obvious is that it can run a broadband speed test to see exactly what your throughput is so that you know whether or not you are getting what you pay for. The one I like to use is from DSLreports.com. This website has been around since the first initial inception of home broadband and has had reliable, free speed tests available to everyone since then. They also have a host of other broadband tests in addition to the speed tests. The speed test runs off a flash program, which is also free.
Simply go to their main page then click on tool. There you will see all the different options for broadband test programs to keep an eye on your computer. Click the speed test link and it will take you to a screen where you can select one from a number of different servers to get the speed test from. Pick the one closes to you if you want to get the most accurate and best results. Choosing a server farther away brings in more hops along the way and can lead to more inaccurate reporting of what your Internet Service Provider is giving you as far as band width is concerned.
After you select the server the broadband test will begin. You should see a speedometer that will move over as your upload and download speeds are measured. In most cases your download throughput will be higher than your upload. This is normal. It should also list out who your Internet Service Provider is.
Once you have completed this broadband test you can select another test from the menu at the top. If your speed test comes back very high but you are still having problems connecting to the internet or downloading things I would run a line test. This report will show you whether or not you have excessive packet loss and how your internet connection is doing overall. There are also tests that will continually monitor your connection for you so you can make sure that it stays healthy.