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DEMO: Testing Bandwidth

Network connection speed testing covers how to measure download speed, upload speed, and latency using browser-based tools and dedicated applications. Both Google's built-in speed test and speedtest.net serve as practical options for diagnosing connectivity performance.

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About this video

Understanding how to measure internet connection performance is a foundational troubleshooting skill for anyone working with networked systems. Two widely used tools cover this need: Google's built-in speed test, accessible directly from a Chrome search, and speedtest.net, which operates as both a web-based service and a downloadable mobile application. Both tools assess the same three key metrics — download speed, upload speed, and latency — providing a quick snapshot of current connection quality. Download speed is measured by transferring a large file from a remote server, while upload speed tests the reverse path. Latency, reported in milliseconds, indicates the round-trip response time between the local device and the test server, which is a critical factor in real-time applications and remote access scenarios. For environments where internet-facing tests are insufficient, the speedtest.net server software can be installed locally, enabling speed and connectivity diagnostics entirely within a private network. This makes it a practical option for identifying bottlenecks at the LAN level rather than attributing all performance issues to the ISP.

What you'll learn

What's covered

Testing Internet Speed

Aligned to

CompTIA A+ Core 1
2.8 Given a scenario, use networking tools.
CompTIA Network+
5.5 Given a scenario, use the appropriate tool or protocol to solve networking issues.
Cisco CCST Networking
1.2 Differentiate between bandwidth and throughput.
5.3 Run basic diagnostic commands and interpret the results.

Key terms

Bandwidth
The maximum rate of data transfer across a network path, typically measured in bits per second.
Latency
The time delay between sending a request and receiving a response over a network.
Download Rate
The speed at which data is transferred from a remote server to a user's device, typically measured in megabits per second.
Upload Rate
The speed at which data is transferred from a user's device to a remote server, typically measured in megabits per second.
Internet Service Provider
ISP
A company that provides end users with access to the internet by connecting them to the internet backbone.
Speed Test
A tool or service used to measure the performance of an internet connection, including download rate, upload rate, and latency.

Transcript

We're going to do just a real quick look on how to measure the speed of your internet service provider and what kind of connections you're getting.

Using Google's Speed Test

All you have to do is pull up a browser. I'm going to pull up Chrome, and in Chrome it actually comes up. So I'm going to do a Google search for speed test, and it comes up with this little tester right here. I can run speed test and it will tell me what speed I'm getting on my network connection right now. So that's a fast way to do it.

What it's measuring right now is it's testing out, it's downloading something big, a large file size. So it's testing out what kind of connectivity I have. And now it's doing an upload and testing the upload and seeing what I have there. Then another thing that it gives me here is the latency, 11 milliseconds. So it gives me the latency in this as well.

Using Speedtest.net

Another service that I can use is speedtest.net, or Ookla. I can click on here and click on go, and then it will give me similar information.

I actually use this app as well, so on my mobile devices I have this as well. So if I'm on a network and I'm struggling, then I can just click on this and see what kind of connection speeds I'm getting. So these are some tools that can really help you out.

You can actually download the Ookla server. I've had it downloaded before and installed it so I could test connectivity and speeds even on my local network. So that's also an available way of troubleshooting things as well.

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