The FAST Way to Check Your Internet Speed & More Speed Stuff
A while back, I had some internet connection issues and my ISP recommended I use Ocala Speed Test at https://speedtest.net/ to check my Internet speed. But Speedtest.net has so become overgrown with advertisements and extraneous stuff. The Speedtest page is too cluttered. I don’t like clutter. I want to see my Internet speed, not a bunch of other junk.
About the time I was haggling with my ISP over my Internet connection speed, we found a site that is as accurate as Speedtest, but without all the clutter and page detritus. It’s called FAST.com and that it is. Whether your Internet connection is fast or not, FAST can tell you.
FAST is owned by Netflix. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, depends on how you view Netflix. One good thing about Netflix owning FAST.com is that they don’t need to cover the page in ads, they just raise the price of Netflix subscriptions!
Seriously –The next time you want to check your Internet speed without viewing a bunch of advertisements and other page clutter, try checking your Internet speed at FAST.com.
What can I say? My aging eyes have no problems reading that. And though that’s only my download speed, it’s what most of us want to see when we want to know how fast our internet connection is.
But if you’re the kind who yearns to know more, no problem. Just click “Show more info”.
You’ll see my download speed is 70-73 Mbps and my upload speed is 9.8 Mbps. My speed is supposed to be 100 Mbps, according to my ISP. However, my router is in a corner room of my house, quite a distance from the laptop I’m using. If I had more motivation, I’d move the router to a more central location and then I’d get speed closer to the 100 Mbps speed I’m paying for.
And now some words from FAST.com…
What is FAST.com measuring?
FAST.com speed test gives you an estimate of your current Internet speed. You will generally be able to get this speed from leading Internet services, which use globally distributed servers.Why does FAST.com focus primarily on download speed?
Download speed is most relevant for people who are consuming content on the Internet, and we want FAST.com to be a very simple and fast speed test.What about ping, latency, upload and other things?
When you click the “Show more info” button, you can see your upload speed and connection latency (ping). FAST.com provides two different latency measurements for your Internet connection: “unloaded” and “loaded” with traffic. The difference between these two measurements is also called “bufferbloat”…
About Mbps and MBps
For the record, Mbps is different from MBps. Mbps is “Megabits per second” not “Megabytes per second”. So, what’s the difference? We are thrilled you asked:
A Megabit is one-eighth as big as a Megabyte. This means that to download a one MB file in one second you would need a download speed of 8 Mbps.
Just remember that Mbps means megabits per second – not megabytes per second.
But let’s not get all caught up in this stuff. The next time you want to check your Internet speed just go to www.fast.com – and you’ll see how fast (or slow) your connection really is.
Don’t be afraid to call your Internet Service Provider (ISP)
And if you think your speed is slower than it should be considering the big bucks you’re paying your Internet provider, call them and ask them what speed you’re paying for. If your speed is not up to snuff, have them check your lines and equipment. Most ISPs will do that for you free of charge.
So do we need to divide the score by 8, to be on the same page as our ISP?
No, you don’t. Most people say their speed is X megabytes per second, when they mean megabits per second. Most ISPs are careful to write Mbps (megabits per second). Check your ISP’s home speed page and you’ll find they show download speeds in MEGABITS per second and not MEGABYTES per second. Spectrum (My ISP) says this on their sales page.
Note the capital M small b … megabits… megabytes would be MBps…
I just checked my speed on Fast.com. Comparing the speed it stated for my computer, there is a huge difference between mine and yours. The test states 710 Mbps and Latency
Unloaded 10 ms Loaded 13 ms Upload Speed 290 Mbps
Does this even seem right? I have no idea since this is very foreign to me.
My speed is my speed. I posted it as an example of how FAST.com works, not to show what your speed should be. If you’re getting 710 Mbps, you have one of the fastest connections I’ve ever heard of. I know some connections available approaching 1 Gbps, but I’m paying for 100 Mbps speed and if I keep my laptop near my router I get 100 Mbps. I’m far from the router and I use a range extender to get the speed I get. But my speed has nothing to do with anything – I was only showing how FAST.com works.