Internet Speed Test
What does the Internet Speed Test do?
How to run an Internet Speed Test
Export your Internet Speed Test results from Fingbox
What type of Internet Speed should I expect?
How are the Internet Speed Tests measured?
The Science Behind the Fingbox Internet Speed Test
The Science Behind ISP ratings
Internet speed tests and more: Video
What does the Internet Speed Test do?
The Internet Speed Test shows you the quality of your Internet Service Provider (ISP).
The Internet speed test on Fing Mobile, Fing Desktop and Fingbox measures the bandwidth and latency of an Internet connection against a server. The data rate is evaluated in both directions: upload and download. Internet speed has a direct impact on the quality of any Internet-based service.
The speed test tool shows your ISP, city and country, and network. Below the speed test result, you can see how your result rates compared to other users in the same city.
Internet Speed Test: Features
- Download Speed: How fast your network downloads content from the Internet. When you receive data from a remote system, typically a server. Downloading is simulated by the MLAB server that sends data to our NDT client on one or multiple connections.
- Upload Speed: How fast your network uploads content to the Internet. Upload: When you send data from a remote system, typically a server. Uploading is simulated by our NDT client that sends data to the MLAB server on a single connection.
- Latency: The delay before the transfer of data begins. Latency is the time delay of how long it takes data to travel between the sender and the receiver. Latency is measured using the ICMP Ping tool from the local phone to the MLAB server.
- Recent: A history of your download and upload speeds
- ISP Scoreboard: A leaderboard that shows where your ISP ranks against the other ISPs in your city or country
- Compare Providers: Compare your ISP provider with other ISP providers
- Scheduled: Schedule automatic speed tests up to six times per day to track your ISP speed
- Performance Graph: A graph that shows how your ISP speed has been performing
- Report: Receive an email that will detail your overall Internet performance for the current or last month
How to run an Internet Speed Test
Fing Desktop
From Overview, click the Internet tab in the left sidebar and click the Test speed button
Fing Mobile App
Click Tools in the bottom toolbar, click Run speed test and select Test speed from this device
Schedule Internet Speed Tests
Automated Internet speed tests are set as default for all Fingbox users. See the following for how to remove automated Internet speed tests or change their schedule.
Fing Desktop
The speed test tool on Fing Desktop is the same as the Speed test on the Fing Mobile App whilst using more optimized tools.
- Click Internet in the left sidebar
- Scroll down and click the Edit schedule button
- Click the Schedule hours you want an automatic speed test to run at and click Save. You can run up to 6 automatic tests per day.
- To remove all the automated speed tests, click Clear. To deselect certain automated speed tests, deselect the schedule hours you want to remove.
The graph in the Internet tab titled Average Performance of last 7 days will show the results of your scheduled Internet speed tests over the past week. It will also show your average Internet speed for the past week.
Note: You cannot select exact times to run a speed test because Fingbox needs to randomize the execution during that hour. This ensures the M-Lab servers are not overloaded by too many concurrent requests.
Fing Mobile and Fingbox
To select whether you want to run speed tests on mobile or Fingbox:
- Open the Fing Mobile App
- Click Overview on the bottom toolbar
- Click the circular icon with three dots at the top right of the page
- To schedule speed tests on your phone, select Current Wi-Fi. To schedule speed tests on your Fingbox, select the option with Fingbox icon beside it.
Once you have selected mobile or Fingbox:
- From Overview, click the Internet widget. This is the third tab from the top of the page labelled with the name of your ISP. For example, Eir. Alternatively, from Overview, click the Online devices widget and click the Internet tab.
- Scroll down to Average performance of last 7 days and click on the button with the calendar icon
- Click on the testing hours you want an automatic speed test to run at and click Ok. You can run up to 6 automatic tests per day.
- To remove automated speed tests, deselect the testing hours
What you can achieve
There is a heading at the bottom of the page called What you can achieve. This feature explains what the metrics mean and how they affect your daily life. For example, a user may ask:
'My download speed is 179.8 Mbs & my upload speed is 196.4 Mbps…So what? What impact does it have on my network? Will this limit my internet usage? Can I stream my favorite movies? I have a video call with my boss later, will this be impacted?’
The What you can achieve feature answers such questions.
Check where your ISP ranks
Use the test speed tool to access your ISP information including weekly outage rates, ratings and reviews, comparison of ISP to other ISPs, the best performances in your city/country, and ISP contact details.
To check where your ISP ranks:
Fing Desktop
- From Overview, click Internet in the left sidebar
- Scroll down and click on the Scoreboard button with the trophy icon
- This will take you to the Provider's scoreboard page. Here you will see a list of how your network and ISP’s average compare to others in your country.
Fing Mobile App
- From Overview, click the Online devices widget or the blue See devices button
- Click the Internet tab
- Click the blue Scoreboard button under the heading Your Internet score
Order Results: In the Provider's scoreboard, you can order the results by Download, Upload, Your Performance Score, Test Samples, Sentiment, or Ratings.
Export your Internet Speed Test results from Fingbox
The email reports allow you to export all the data on your Internet performance for the current or last month. You can refer to the email reports if you report a problem to your ISP.
Fing Desktop
- From Overview, click Internet in the left sidebar
- Scroll down and select Report
Fing Mobile App
- Click Overview in the bottom toolbar
- Click the Online devices widget
- Click the Internet tab
- Scroll down to the graph. Under the graph, click the Report button with the page icon.
- Choose to get a report for This Month or Last Month
You will then receive a breakdown of how your Internet performed over the last month. The breakdown will include: daily, weekly and average download, upload, latency and Internet outage results.
What type of Internet speed should I expect?
Usually, an Internet download speed of 100 Mbps or higher is considered fast because it means the Wi-Fi can deal with multiple online activities for multiple users at the same time without major disruptions in the service.
Usually, an Internet upload speed of 10 Mbps or higher is considered fast because this speed can handle the activities of an average user without difficulty.
Below is the minimum download speed required for common activities made by BroadbandNow:
- 1-5 Mbps minimum for checking emails and browsing
- 15-25 Mbps minimum for streaming HD content
- 40-100 Mbps minimum for streaming 4K content and playing online games
- 200+ Mbps minimum for streaming, play online games and downloading very large files
How are the Internet Speed Tests measured?
The Internet Speed Test infrastructure is provided by our partner Measurement Lab (M-Lab)
M-Lab is a trusted independent lab for network measurement. M-Lab is backed by academic institutions and used by large Internet companies such as Google.
M-Lab provides an API through which you can ask the best server to perform the test. The criteria is geographical proximity and lowest latency. When you use M-Lab’s measurement services, your device is connected to servers closest to you geographically. You can view all of our current server locations on our Infrastructure Status Page.
M-Lab host servers in Tier 1 data centres where ISPs pair with other networks.
Note: M-labs do not have servers in Switzerland. The servers in Italy are the closest for any discrepancy in speed tests for Switzerland.
M-labs placement of servers is different than other speed testing platforms such as Ookla. M-lab hosts servers in Tier 1 data centers where ISPs peer with other networks, instead of inside the 'last mile' networks that provide you direct service.
The Science Behind the Fingbox Internet Speed Test
The Fingbox Internet Speed Test is also provided by our partner Measurement Lab.
The Fingbox Internet Speed Test gives you a measurement of a realistic speed achievable with real Internet services, rather than a formal speed sustainable within the “last mile“. M-Lab servers are located in the most important exchange nodes of the global Internet. See the test locations here.
The test takes approximately 30 seconds. The test gauges your Internet speed by measuring how much data can move through your connection in that time, in download and in upload. The test uses different amounts of data depending on how fast your connection is and where you do the test. For example, a typical test in the U.S. can use up to 20MB of data.
Note: Because of the different locations of M-Lab's test servers, M-Lab test results may differ from other commercial services.
Why your test results may vary and differ from other speed tests
Your test results can change in a short time and differ from other internet speed test results. Results can vary for multiple reasons, such as changes in network conditions or changes in testing servers' location.
For more information on why M-Lab speed test results may differ from others, see the M-Lab FAQ
Note: Fingbox can operate up to 1 Gigabit speed. However, the link speed can be less. Ensure to connect your Fingbox to a Gigabit router/switch port and use the provided LAN cable.
The Science Behind ISP ratings
The Fing analytics provide ISP scoreboards by automatically ranking Fing and Fingbox speed and quality measurements.
To calculate speed scores: For each provider we compute the minimum, maximum, average and standard deviation metrics and use them in a Z-score algorithm, which assumes a population following a normal distribution. Country and city populations of providers are then grouped, with each provider weighted by the contribution of different test sources. We then determine the score of each provider and your network as the estimated percentiles are combined for download and upload. Download makes up 80% of the percentiles and upload makes up the remaining 20%.
Internet speed tests and more: Video
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