Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Use Your Phone for Internet Speed Tests
Most of us use our phones for practically everything, so it just seems natural to grab your phone to run a speed test on your home internet connection. Here’s why you should avoid doing that—and what to do instead.
Why Your Phone Shows Inaccurate Results
A question we often field from our concerned neighbors and friends is “I ran a speed test on my internet. Why is it way slower than what I’m paying for?”
That’s certainly a valid question. Who wants to pay for the top-tier internet package only to get the budget-tier speeds? Usually, when we dig a little deeper, we find out the person ran a speed test on their smartphone and they’re upset the result is a fraction of the anticipated speed. But that outcome is to be expected in most cases.
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Your Phone’s Wi-Fi Connection Is a Bottleneck
The device, in this case your phone, has to navigate through your home network first and every single thing between that device and the speed test server is a potential bottleneck. The second your maximum bandwidth exceeds the capacity of any piece of network hardware between your modem and the testing device, you’re going to get inaccurate results.
If you’re getting speed test results that are a fraction of the internet speed you pay for while using your phone, the likely culprit behind the bottleneck is your Wi-Fi router and/or the Wi-Fi device you’re running the test on.
Why? Because, except for folks with slower connections, the overall speed of the internet connection (as measured directly at the modem) is faster than what a single connection between the Wi-Fi hardware and any Wi-Fi device can handle.
This includes not only smartphones but everything else on the network using Wi-Fi including tablets, laptops, game consoles, streaming devices, and smart TVs. If your overall broadband speed is higher than what the Wi-Fi gear in your house can handle, you’ll always get inaccurate results running a speed test using a Wi-Fi device.
The exception to this rule, of course, is if you’re rocking really nice hardware connected to a slow broadband connection. A new Wi-Fi router paired with a new smartphone has more than enough bandwidth capacity to outpace a 25 Mpbs DSL connection.
Comparing Wi-Fi and Ethernet Speed Tests
What does this look like under real-world conditions? Let’s jump right into an example that will likely feel familiar to tons of folks who have run speed tests using their smartphones and unknowingly run into the bottleneck problem.
Source: howtogeek.com
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