Elain Brown Tech 05.19.2022 10:May AM EDT

Adulting Tip [2022] This Is How You Can Test the Speed of Your WiFi

The internet has become an integral part of our daily lives in this generation. From work, transportation, school, and health care, almost all aspects of our lives have incorporated the use of the internet.

Given this, having reliable and secure WiFi is a must nowadays. If your internet seems to be moving slower than usual for no apparent reason, testing the speed of your WiFi connection is the best way to find out if there is a problem.

It's possible that all you need to do to fix the problem is restart your modem and router. However, if it does not work, users can test their WiFi.

It's a simple process, and you can find a wide variety of programs online that can test your WiFi speed and run in any web browser.

In the following paragraphs, we will walk you through the process of troubleshooting as well as show you how to check the speed of your internet connection.

How To Test the Speed of Your WiFi

There are multiple ways to test your WiFi's speed. Here are the recommended steps by the Tech Advisor.

All you need to do is download the WiFi Speed Test app by Zoltan Pallagi. However, this app is only accessible on Android and not iOS. However, if you use an iOS device, users can download WiFi SweetSpots, an alternative app that works just like the first one.

Installing WiFi SweetSpots on your iPhone also allows you to observe the average speed over time and function in a manner quite similar to that described above.

Here's how to get started testing the speed of your Wi-Fi:

First, double check if your smartphone is connected to the Wi-Fi network you want to test.

Second, open the app and launch the testing for your network. At the bottom, you should see two toggle switches: one for WiFi test and one for Internet test.

Some Wi-Fi routers give out two separate connections, 2.4GHz and 5GHz. Make sure to test both of them to come up with a more accurate result.

Lastly, start the testing in different rooms or at different distances from your router to compare the speed of your Wi-Fi.

To check the results of the test you conducted, just go to the Test Results tab of the app. The set of results that have come out will give you an idea of how fast your Wi-Fi is.

If the results are too slow for your liking, this will also give you an idea of what to do next. These next steps could be: finding out the reason for the slow connectivity; switching connection providers; halting your current subscription; or updating your Wii-Fi plan.

The Internet Speed Test

If you are looking to figure out how fast your internet connection is, as recommended by MUO and CNET, you can go to speedtest.com and test your connection.

Testing the speed of your WiFi connection is easy to do. Choose a service, then click the large Go or Run Test button, and then sit back and wait for it to complete. You won't be waiting very long at all because the entire process usually takes less than a minute.

When you do a test to see how fast your WiFi connection is, look out for three things:

Ping Rate or Latency.
Download Speed
Upload Speed

The ping rate monitors network latency. It's the time it takes a data packet to travel from source to recipient. High latency creates lag, which is undesirable for all internet users. Ping rates of over 150 milliseconds might create game lag; under 20ms is considered minimal latency.

The download speed measures the amount of data downloaded in megabits per second (Mbps). It downloads various chunks of data, dynamically modifying their size and the number of connections as it goes along. In order to evaluate the outcomes, you first need to determine the bandwidth of the service to which you have subscribed and then compare the two.

The upload speed demonstrates how quickly it is possible to transfer data, for example, when you are backing up files to a cloud service. To determine how well you are doing, compare the outcome of your speed test to the speed that was quoted to you by your provider.