With a speed test you measure the bandwidth of the link with the lowest capacity between the test server and your device.
One of the characteristics of an excellent speed test is that the speed test is accurate and consistent.
However measuring internet speed is hard. Hard for the ISP and hard for the customer. Companies like Ookla and SamKnows helps ISP to measure their internet speed hence it isn't that strange that most ISP's suggest you to use the Ookla Speedtest and that SamKnows was able to create their excellent speed test RealSpeed.
However with trial and error we learned that the true internet speed is 12% higher than the advertised internet speed and that there are three main categories of speed tests with a reason.
Through the many tests we have performed we have also learned how to efficiently test speed tests. This has led to the test protocol standardized speed test test.
Last but not least it is important to know that:
- When you perform a speed test there are some factors affecting your speed test results
- Not every speed test uses the same amount of data
- Different speed tests give different results