Speed Tests

These sites may help you identify what is normal for your connection, and what is unusually slow and therefore may need investigating.

WARNING: Do not click on any links or programs that promise to speed up your computer or internet connection – these are almost certainly a scam, and often contain malicious software. These links or ads are especially common on many popular speed testing websites.

Know your speed and plan

You firstly need to know what the speed of your Internet connection is meant to be. You also need to be aware that the listed speed on your plan is the maximum speed you can achieve on your connection, and that your usual everyday speed will most likely be a little lower than that.

For example, if you’re on a Sky Muster™ Plus satellite service 25/5 connection, that means you can download content at up to 25mbps on your connection, and upload it at 5mbps.

If you run a speed test at 7pm on a weeknight and it comes back with a speed of 21mbps, that is quite a normal and expected response. It is not at all unusually slow.

If, however, it came back with a speed of 8mbps, that’s something to be concerned about.

We also do recommend testing your speed on more than one speed test site, to be on the safe side.

If you contact your service provider with the results of your speed test, in order to report an issue, we suggest telling them which website you used to test your speed with.

Provider speed test websites

You must be using a service provided by the business in order to test your speed.

 

General speed test websites

 

Speed test apps (for mobile phones, tables and devices)

Sam Knows is an app created by the same people who run the ACCC Measuring Broadband Australia program. It’s available for both iOS and Android devices. Go to your app store and search for “Sam Knows”.

  • Measuring Broadband Australia. You can sign up for the program to regularly test and report on your internet speeds, too.
  • Sam Knows. An organisation that providers measurement and reporting on internet services in general.

 

How to test your internet speed

  • Always test your internet connection speed in the manner recommended by your service provider.
  • It is advised that you close as many other programs on your computer/device as possible.
  • Try to ensure other computers or devices are not accessing the internet at the same time, which may affect the test.
  • Bypass or eliminate as much of your home equipment as possible. The very best way to test is with a computer or test device connected via a LAN cable directly to you’re the modem you’re testing.
  • A wi-fi connection is often a cause of poor performance. It often has an effect on both your user experience and the speedtest outcome.
  • If you need to run your test over a wi-fi connection, try to place your device as close to the router as possible, and turn off all other devices accessing the service.

 

How to understand the results

A speed test will contain a range of information. The three key ones are:

  1. Download speed.
    1. Measured in megabits per second – Mbps.
    2. This is how fast information comes from the remote computer into yours via your internet connection.
  2. Upload speed.
    1. Measured in megabits per second – Mbps.
    2. This is how fast information goes from your computer to the remote one into yours via your internet connection.
  3. Latency.
    1. Measured in ms (milliseconds).
    2. This is how quickly the request for information goes from your computer to the remote one, and back to you again. That request needs to come back before the content you’re after can start displaying on the screen, or playing.
    3. Also called “lag”.
    4. Most noticeable on satellite connections, as it includes the time it takes for information to get up to the satellite dish in orbit around the Earth and back again.

So, in the test above, we have a download speed of 24mbps, an upload speed of 2.9mbps, and a latency of 616ms.

This is a Sky Muster 25/5 connection, tested about 6pm on a sunny weekday evening. It is therefore operating very well on download speeds, a bit slow on upload, and about typical for latency.

Compare a Telstra 4G connection at 6pm on a clear weekday evening, connected to a directional antenna on a 3m pole.

This is pretty good, actually. 33mbps download, 26mbps upload, and a reasonably low (ie, good) latency of 38 milliseconds.

More information

Contact our Helpdesk directly. We can try to narrow down the issue for you.