Overview
complete 1 page
HANDS-ON ACTIVITYHANDS-ON ACTIVITY
Measuring Your Speed
The download and upload speeds you get on the Internet depend partly on the type of Internet access you have. The speeds also depend on how your ISP is connected to other ISPs, how busy the Internet is today, and how busy the website you’re working with is. The last two factors (Internet traffic and Web traffic at the server) are beyond your control. However, you can choose what type of Internet connection you have and who your ISP is.
Many sites on the Internet can test the speed of your Internet connection. Our favorite speed site is speedtest.net. Speedtest.net has lots of advertising; ignore it (and any “windows scan” offer) and just do the speed test. You begin by selecting a server for the test. I selected a server in Nova Scotia and tested how fast the connection was between it and my computer in Indiana, which is connected to the Internet using Comcast’s cable modem service. Figure 10-11 shows that my download speed was 28.86 Mbps and my upload speed was 5.63 Mbps. I ran the same test to a server closer to my computer in Indiana and got about the same speeds. The speeds to a server in Mexico were about 1.5 Mbps down and 1.0 up.