Network Magic - Test Internet Speed Feature

The Network Magic Test Internet Speed feature measures Internet download and upload speeds from your computer, and tells you how your download speed compares to typical types of broadband connections.

Download speed is how fast information from the Internet can be transmitted to your computer, or, how fast a Web page displays in your Web browser. Another example is downloading a piece of software or a software update (e.g. Windows Updates). In typical residential broadband connections, your download speed is several times faster than your upload speed.

Upload speed is how fast information can travel from your computer to other computers on the Internet. If you've ever uploaded pictures to a Web site then you've successfully tested your upload speed -- which is usually quite a bit slower than your download speed.


Your broadband connection is like a pipe
The analogy that works for most people is comparing your Internet connection to a pipe. Given a pipe of a certain size, only a certain amount of things can flow through it at once.

Types of residential broadband connections
Cable and DSL broadband connections are the most common in North America.

Cable connections offer a range of speeds, and their top-end potential speed is usually faster than that offered by many DSL broadband packages. "Potential" speed in this case is just that: since cable broadband connections share bandwidth with other neighbors using the same cable broadband, your actual speed can vary quite a bit depending on which of your neighbors are online and what they're doing. To continue the pipe analogy, your pipe to the Internet is shared with your neighbors, so if many of them are busy surfing the Web, they're filling up your shared pipe, potentially leaving you with less room to fill the pipe on your own -- i.e. less bandwidth for you. Cable broadband connections usually have no guaranteed lower limit (they won't promise that your speed won't drop below some threshold).

A DSL broadband connection to the Internet is a pipe of a fixed size directly to the Internet, not shared with anyone else. DSL broadband connections also offer a range of speeds, but the speeds they generally offer are fixed and mostly guaranteed because you're not sharing any bandwidth with your neighbors. As noted above, cable connections are usually potentially faster than DSL connections, but they're also potentially slower at times.

There are other less-common types of broadband connections, including some cell phone-based connections, wide area wireless technologies (see WiMax and Clearwire), and satellite.




What affects the speed at which Web pages download?

  • Your broadband connection speed -- Different types of broadband connections offer different speeds, and the speeds within each type of connection can vary. See Types of residential broadband connections above for more information.
  • Your local connection speed -- The speed at which your computer is connected to your router can impact your Internet connection speed as well. If you're connected with an Ethernet cable directly to your router, you're usually in good shape and don't need to worry about this. On the other hand, if you're wireless, the quality of your wireless connection can impact your Internet speed quite a bit. See Ideas for improving your local wireless connection speed below for ways to get a faster wireless connection.
  • Other computers or devices using your broadband connection -- If you share your Internet connection with multiple computers or other connected devices within your home, it's possible that one of them is the culprit when it comes to slow download speeds. Other computers downloading large files -- oftentimes using applications like BitTorrent -- can fill up the broadband pipe coming into your house, effectively slowing down all other Internet traffic destined for other computers on your network.
  • Other factors -- The Internet really is like an information superhighway, and as such, it's subject to traffic jams, just like any other highway. Sometimes the Internet is slow in general, and trying whatever you're doing now at some later time may result in better performance. The computers on the Internet that store the Web pages you view in your browser can be slow themselves sometimes too. If a particular Internet site starts getting more requests for Web pages than it's used to getting, it can be really slow to respond. Trying again later can sometimes give you faster speeds.


Can you increase your broadband connection speed?
For DSL subscribers, you can typically call your Internet service provider and pay additional money for a faster connection. For cable broadband customers, you typically can pay more money for a faster connection (which may move into their small office line of offerings), but you're still stuck with the limitation that you won't ever have a guaranteed minimum speed.

Ideas for improving your local wireless connection speed
Microsoft has a great article about improving your wireless connection:

10 tips for improving your wireless network

Microsoft also has an article about connecting Windows XP Media Center PCs and Media Center Extenders wirelessly, and it contains some good general tips as well:

Media Center Extender: Improving your network performance

How to tell if other computers are using bandwidth on your broadband connection
If you have Network Magic installed, use our Speed Meter Pro powertoy. From a single PC, you can determine network usage of all PCs on your network. You'll need to install Network Magic on all of your PCs, and then install Speed Meter Pro on one of your computers.

You can also use the Windows Task Managers Applications tab to see which applications are running on a specific PC. To save network bandwidth, close any applications that arent in use or that take lots of network bandwidth, such as BitTorrent..

How do I use the Test Internet Speed feature?
The Test Internet Speed feature is located on the Network Tasks tab, under Connect. Click the link to begin your test. Knowing your Internet upload and download speeds can help diagnose slow connection problems and fix them. Dont waste time waiting for your network when you can be surfing faster and more efficiently.