Free Broadband Speed Test

Download speed

Your broadband internet connection download speed will affect how fast you can browse the internet, stream video plus how fast you can download music, videos and various files. It is important to note that although that although you sign up for a particular speed broadband e.g. up to 8Mb broadband you may get an actual speed lower than that. There are a number of things that can contribute to your broadband download speed:

1. How far your property is away from your phone exchange. The closer you are to your local exchange the faster your broadband internet connection download speed will be. People in rural countryside locations often find they can only get low broadband speeds because they a so far away from their local exchanges. 
   
2. The time of day you are surfing the internet. You will normally find that broadband download speeds will drop when there are surges in traffic on the internet like when children come home from school or college or when people are home from work in the evenings. More and more people spend their leisure time at theirs PCs watching videos or socially networking rather than watching the TV.
   
3. The number of online applications you are running at once. If you are say watching a streaming video in one browser windows, downloading some software on another window and downloading some itunes in another then you can expect your broadband internet connection speed to be considerably slower than usual. If you are experience painlessly slow speeds then try reducing the number of things you are doing at once.
   
4. The number of computers you have on your wired or wireless network. The fewer computers you have sharing your bandwidth the faster your broadband internet speed will be. It is a good idea to make sure computers that are not in use are disconnected from the internet and better still turned off.
   
5. Viruses, adware & spyware. If your PC is infected with these things it can effect the overall speed of your computers performance and hence your broadband internet connection speed.

Upload Speed

Your broadband upload speed will affect your performance for uploading files to the internet like FTP (file transfer protocol) sending email attachments and streaming out live video. There are a number of things that can contribute to your broadband upload speed:

1. Normally most broadband internet services have a 256Mb upload speed as standard. However more recently some broadband internet service providers have started to offer faster upload speeds which is more suitable for people who are uploading alot of files, sending large files regularly or streaming live video over the internet. These broadband providers include Be Broadband and Pipex Broadband.
   
2. Again if you have several online applications running at once taking your upload speed bandwidth, this can affect your performance.