How to use free internet speed tests and tools

Use these free internet speed tests to determine your connection upload and download speeds

How to do free broadband speed test?

There are several sites which offer the free broadband speed test. If the consumers want to know the actual speed of their Internet connections they can use these sites. Many Broadband service providers cannot complete their commitments which they actually set for the consumers. The broadband services are of two types, one is DSL, that comes in home phone lines and another one is the Cable, which is provided by a coaxial cable. Generally the broadband provides the high speed internet services so that you could get good internet experience and also enjoy surfing with high speed. A new type known as fiber has also been emerging by such companies as Verizon. But what are the real speeds and can we ever find out true speeds with so many factors in play?

The free broadband speed test is essential because users pay for Mbps either the connection is broadband DSL or high speed Cable. But the question is that how can you know the speed of broadband for that you are paying? The results are in the eye of the beholder as so many different factors such as number of connections, wired vs. wireless, location, weather(for satellite/dish Internet) and even what time or day it is may affect your speed.

For free broadband speed test, if you use some of the more popular tools, then the IP address given by the Internet Service Provider (ISP) is compared with the geographic database to find out your location. Then your city will be shown on the world map as a big-size yellow spinning star with several little pyramids and blue stars. These are the locations of the Internet Server which can be used to test the broadband speed. This method is time consuming because the site recommends many servers to get the best of it. To get most accurate and fastest speed test results, you need to select the location with least 'ping' time. Actually ping is a test that calculates the time taken by a packet to reach at a remote location PC to the local host PC. This process saves your time to get the result of free broadband speed test. To determine the fastest ping location, there is a pingtest.net site. The pingtest.net site allows you to determine the location of the lowest ping time automatically.

This free tests give you either actual numbers or a letter grade from A - F depending on the overall quality of your Internet connection. Results of the speed test help to know that you are getting the actual speed that is advertised by the providers or not. You can also shift to another Internet Service Provider or you can improve the speed by updating hardware such as your PC, modem, and ethernet wiring. While these tests are not a scientific measure, running them at different times and days should help gain an average speed for uploading and downloading. Also check several different tools and websites to see which is most accurate.

If you want to get an accurate idea of the speed of your broadband connection, you should run tests at least three times in a day that is sufficient to know what is happening. You have to test the speed from different test websites but this is essential that the site must use the professional quality test applications.