How do I check the Speed of my Connection?

The Internet is full of sites that offer a speed testing service that will measure the speed of your connection. The way speed testers work is by calculating the time it takes to download a predefined set of data. This means there are some key factors to remember when running speed tests.

• Run speed tester that are UK based. If you are running a speed tester located on a server in the US or Europe you will not get accurate results.
• Always run more than one test. Unfortunately with the way broadband works you do not and never will receive a constant set speed, your connection speed will fluctuate from one second to the next. By running 3 tests you will be able to work out an average.
• Clear your cache between tests. Because the speed testers measure the speed it takes for you to download a file, if you already have the file downloaded this could affect additional speed tests, clearing your cache between speed tests will resolve this issue.
• Run tests at different times of the day to get a true picture of the your connection speed. Unfortunately there are going to be busy times when your connection speed will drop. Think of this in the same way as driving during rush hour. At 6pm in the evening you may only be able to drive at 20mph but at 10am you could be able to do 60mph, broadband is the same, the more connections there are the more bandwidth has to be shared.
• Beware of the measurements that speed tests report results in. Below is a table that will give you an idea of these measurements and what they mean in real terms.

Note: For broadband speed calculations 1 Mbps = 1000 Kbps (it is a common error to use 1024 in conversion between kbps and bps),  if you were calculating storage (hard drive, memory) it is correct to use 1 MB = 1024 KB.

It also important to be aware that Kbps is not Kilobytes per second but Kilobits per second and Mbps is not Megabytes per second but Megabits per second.

In the real world where we are all used to working in Megabytes this can be confusing so here is a basic guide.

The package speed details the kind of products you can buy from TalkTalk. The Kbps is the maximum speed you could expect to get for that connection and the MB/second is speed in Megabytes.