Tests don’t guarantee consistent speeds at all times. It’s important to remember that speeds tests offer only a general estimate. The tool works in any of the popular browsers, including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox or Microsoft Edge. An older router and an outdated computer generally don’t connect as quickly as newer, updated hardware.Īrvig provides an easy-to-use, one-click tool to check your internet speed. Speed also can depend on your technology.
A direct line allows data to be delivered far more quickly than through a Wi-Fi signal carried by radio waves. When you connect a device via an ethernet cable, you are establishing a one-to-one connection. Hard-wired networks generally offer faster speeds than Wi-Fi, though both have benefits. Other factors that contribute to speed include the connection method and the capability of the technology you use. If you want to look at it another way, we break down the difference between bandwidth and speed with a simple demonstration using water, containers and a funnel. The rate of speed you experience is directly affected by available bandwidth. Picture a highway at rush hour: traffic will travel more slowly than if only a few cars are on the road. Like traffic on the road, your devices compete for a share of that bandwidth when they’re connected. It’s true that greater bandwidth correlates with faster speeds, since you can receive more data at a faster rate, but with actual speeds, there’s another factor at play.Įach of the devices connected to your network-whether it’s a computer, smartphone, TV, or game system-needs bandwidth, or a lane on the highway. Just as a road has a speed limit, there are limits to how fast data can move. Whereas bandwidth is the carrying capacity, speed is the transfer rate. Now let’s move to the speed part of the picture. To use the highway analogy, 10-megabits per second is a two-lane road, and 50 megabits is a multi-lane highway. A plan offering a maximum bandwidth of 50 Mbps can transport data at double the rate of a 25-megabit service, and has five-times the capacity of a 10-megabit plan. Most internet service plans are packaged in megabits per second (Mbps). In the same way that more lanes can transport a higher volume of traffic, greater bandwidth can move data at a higher rate. In the age of high speed internet, the word “highway” still applies, only these days, there’s more traffic than ever, and it’s capable of moving much faster than before.
And though the phrase might seem a little outdated today, parts of it are still useful, especially when explaining the difference between bandwidth and speed. In the ’90s, it was popular to describe the internet as the information superhighway.
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