Compare download speeds internet

A quality customer service team can be a big help when you experience problems with your connection or equipment—sometimes all it takes is a quick call to tech support to resolve an issue.

You can get a feel for how easy or difficult it is to address problems with an ISP by looking at our survey of customer satisfaction ratings. The best providers waive these extra fees at least on the upper-tier plans , and you can also save money by buying your own router and modem. Most internet providers give you plenty of data to use every month, and some even hook you up with totally unlimited data. But some budget plans come with sneakily small data limits, and satellite providers have very low data caps.

We recommend avoiding that if possible by going with a no-contract, month-to-month plan. Still need help comparing internet providers? Here are some other resources to help you answer your questions.

Download speed is the main criteria that people use to figure out if their internet is fast enough. Most of what we do online involves downloading data—think of streaming movies, downloading files, or playing online games.

You need a relatively reliable upload speed in order to do things like attending Zoom meetings, hosting livestreams, or posting lots of content to social media. Most internet providers have much slower upload speeds compared to their download speeds.

Low latency rates make for smoother gameplay and fewer glitches, vastly improving your experience in fast-paced games like first-person shooters. Faster is better, but not all online activities require the fastest plans available. Enter your zip code to find out which ISPs offer plans near you. Search by zip code Search Providers. The best internet provider is EarthLink. With a large nationwide network and excellent customer service, this provider swept to the lead in our annual customer satisfaction survey , taking first place for speed, price, reliability, and overall satisfaction.

Xfinity is also a great internet provider—dare we say it is practically tied with EarthLink. As a cable provider, it offers a range of plans at fair prices and is widely available in the United States. You can get gigabit speeds, or you can pay less for still-robust internet upwards of Mbps. View EarthLink Plans.

Basic streaming does not require very much bandwidth. However, when you start to stream in 4k resolution or stream on many devices at once, you will need a much larger internet package.

If you want to stream in 4k Ultra HD, you will need a minimum of 25 Mbps. However, streaming even one video in 4k HD may use up all of your available bandwidth. For that reason, if you like high-definition video and you have more than one device connected at a time, we recommend a speed of 50 Mbps or more. For instance, say you have a 25 Mbps down connection speed. Your total potential speed is split across all of the devices connected to the network.

Also, using WiFi will always be slower than a hardwired connection. Trying to stream over WiFi can produce less-than-stellar results. Use our bandwidth calculator to get an estimate of the speed you actually need to stream on multiple devices at home.

Online gaming is one of the few activities that require a fast upload speed. This is because the actions that you perform in-game are uploaded to a server for other players to view and interact with. Minimum internet speed requirements for gaming are usually Mbps if nobody else in the house is using up your bandwidth. Transfer rates are commonly described using a bits-per-second measurement. Kbps Kilobits per second. Only the slowest connections are measured this way. Mbps Megabits per second.

The most common unit of measurement for modern internet connections. Gbps Gigabits per second. Faster connections are measured this way. GBps Gigabytes per second. No currently operating consumer networks utilize this measurement. Bandwidth You can think of bandwidth as the total capacity a given network has in terms of data.

During certain times of peak traffic, you may experience slower speeds. Throughput Throughput is very similar to bandwidth, in that it is a measurement of the amount of data that passes from one point to another within a certain amount of time.

Unlike bandwidth, however, this is a measurement of volume, not speed. Ping Ping simply refers to a signal that is sent from a given device to a server, and back again. This measurement is reflected as latency on a network. Not necessarily. There are many reasons why you may not be getting the results you expected from your speed test.

Once again, make sure you run the test multiple times to rule out any random dips in speed. Also be sure to double check that no one else is using their device on your network when you run the test. Even a single smartphone can measurably alter your results if it is downloading a large update or streaming content at the same time as your speed test. Our first recommendation is always to contact your service provider directly for help.

They will be able to alert you to any network outages or other issues in your area, and can often troubleshoot your individual connection over the phone or via a live chat service.

Disconnect any VPN service that could be effecting your connection during tests. If it does help, you may be experiencing signal issues with your WiFi. When computers send information over the internet, that information is in bits or bytes. The bits or bytes take time to reach their destination.

That time is measured in seconds. So internet speeds are measured by identifying how many bits or bytes are transferred in one second, hence bits per second, or bytes per second.

Because the bits and bytes are so small, the number transferred in a single second is almost always well over 1, The common practice is to express those large numbers using the metric-based prefixes:. While any of these expressions of speed could be technically correct, internet service providers usually advertise the capacities of their services using the bits measurements of Kbps, Mbps, or Gbps, over the bytes measurements, presumably because the numbers look eight times bigger.

Most internet speeds are expressed in Mbps. Upload speeds and very slow download speeds are sometimes measured in Kbps. However, over the past decade, top-end internet speeds have increased, and the fastest internet speeds are now often measured in Gbps. Internet services capable of reaching the Gbps threshold are often referred to as 1 gig or gigabit internet.

These super-fast internet connections usually rely on fiber-optic technology. Internet speed is the measure of how fast information is transferred, while bandwidth refers to the capacity of an individual internet connection. As internet connection technology improved, particularly in the s, it allowed the transmission of information over a much larger variety of frequencies.

In the current vernacular, broadband essentially refers to any type of internet connection except dial-up, but according to the FCC, an internet service must deliver at least 25 Mbps download speed and at least 3 Mbps upload speed to qualify as broadband.

Fiber internet is the fastest widely available internet technology. It uses fiber-optic cables, which are capable of transmitting large amounts of information quickly. Much of the limitation in its availability stems from the high cost of creating its network infrastructure. Cable internet uses the same types of cables that transmit cable TV services. It has broadband capability and thus can reach high speeds. It is usually available through current or former cable TV providers in their respective areas.

Cable internet speeds are usually similar to DSL speeds, but can be even faster in some areas. DSL , short for Digital Subscriber Line, uses a connection that looks similar to a phone line, but the wiring inside is different and allows for broadband transmission.

This makes DSL much faster than dial-up. Current or former telephone companies that also provide internet service often use this technology, and it is usually available throughout their service areas. Satellite internet is delivered wirelessly to the receiver, but it still requires wires to transport the signal from the receiver to different locations throughout the building.

Satellite internet has bandwidth comparable to DSL and cable but can often feel slower due to latency. See the previous section for more information about this. Because of its technological limitations, it is almost obsolete. Latency is the time required for a signal to travel from one computer to another computer on the network and back.

Latency is often referred to using different terms, including ping, ping rate, and lag. People use these interchangeably, but they actually mean different things:.

Whatever you choose to call it, the lower the number the better. High ping, or high latency, results in longer wait times when information uploads to or downloads from the internet.