Internet Speed Test

What Does an Internet Speed Test Measure?

• Download speed: how many megabits per second (Mbps) can travel from the internet to your device. It determines how fast pages load, videos start and files download.
• Upload speed: how fast your device can send data to the internet. It matters for video calls, live streaming, cloud backups and sending large files.
• Latency (ping): the time in milliseconds it takes a packet to reach the server and come back. For gaming and video calls it often matters more than raw speed.
• Jitter: how much the latency varies. High jitter causes choppy audio and frozen video.
• Latency under load: latency measured while your connection is busy downloading or uploading. If it's much higher than idle latency, your router may suffer from “bufferbloat,” which makes games and calls stutter whenever someone else starts a big download.

How Does the Speed Test Work?

The whole measurement runs in your browser using Cloudflare's open-source measurement engine, the same one behind speed.cloudflare.com. Your browser downloads files of increasing size from the nearest Cloudflare data center and uploads data to it; our server isn't involved in the transfer. Cloudflare sees your IP address during these transfers; the results are not sent separately to us or to Cloudflare. The result reflects your connection at that moment and the route to Cloudflare, so tests that measure against other servers may show slightly different numbers.

What Are Good Ping and Jitter Values?

As a rule of thumb, ping under 20 ms is excellent, 20–50 ms is good and 50–100 ms is acceptable; above 100 ms, the delay becomes noticeable in games and video calls. Ideally jitter stays within a few milliseconds, while jitter above 30 ms can cause dropouts in audio and video. Mobile and satellite connections naturally have higher latency.

Mbps vs. MB/s

Internet speeds are quoted in megabits per second (Mbps), while file sizes and download managers usually use megabytes (MB/s). One byte is 8 bits, so divide Mbps by 8 to get MB/s: a 100 Mbps connection downloads at most about 12.5 MB/s. Protocol overhead keeps real-world transfers slightly below that.

What Affects Your Results?

• Wi-Fi vs. cable: distance, walls, neighboring networks and the band you're on (2.4 GHz or 5 GHz) can cut wireless speeds considerably.
• Your device: older phones and laptops, Ethernet ports limited to 100 Mbps and old cables can't reach high speeds.
• Other traffic: downloads, updates, streaming and cloud backups on other devices share the same bandwidth.
• VPNs: encryption and a distant server reduce speed and add latency.
• Time of day: congestion in your provider's network during evening peak hours can lower results.

Tips for Accurate Results

1. Connect your computer to the router with an Ethernet cable if you can.
2. Pause downloads and streaming on other devices, and turn off your VPN.
3. Run the test several times at different times of day and look at the average.
4. On a DSL line, also check the sync (line) rate on your modem's status page; if it's well below your plan's speed, the problem is most likely the line itself.
5. If results stay low, restart the router and contact your provider with measurements taken over a cable connection.

How Much Speed Do You Need?

These figures are for a single activity; if several people in your home are online at once, add their needs together.