On the other hand, a low download speed will leave you with long load times and pixelated or laggy video streams. So, a high download speed will allow you to load internet pages instantaneously and enjoy online video streaming without buffering. This is the rate at which your device is able to access content from the internet. That said, you will start to notice high ping if you're trying to make split-second decisions in an online multiplayer game, and it can also cause annoying delays during video call conversations.The most important result is the download speed. In most cases, ping differences are pretty minor, enough so that you won't notice them without running a speed test. Your ping might also rise slightly if you're connecting through something like a mesh router or a range extender, where your data needs to make multiple wireless jumps before reaching the modem. Ping will go up if you're connecting to a server that's very far away, or if there's some sort of interference somewhere in the connection. Think of it like a round-trip flight time for your internet connection. Simply put, the ping number is the time that it took for your device to send a signal to whatever distant server you connected to during the speed test, and then receive a response. In addition to showing you the current upload and download speeds for whatever device you're running the test on, most internet speed tests will also give you a figure called ping, which is a latency measurement measured in milliseconds.

That's not surprising, but it might make a slight impact on your results depending on the strength of your connection at the time of the test. You can even run the Ookla speed test on an Apple TV.Īll of that said, Ookla does display banner ads while you run basic speed tests. In addition to the website and the smartphone apps, Ookla also has apps that you can run on Windows or on Mac. Most recently, the service released a video-specific speed test that measures your network's ability to handle 4K video streams.

Ookla's done a good job of keeping up with the times by adding new features and capabilities over the years. Incidentally, Ookla's speed test is also the one we use when we're testing Wi-Fi routers. Popularity aside, we like Ookla for having everything a basic user needs from a speed test: accuracy, the ability to view your speed test history (when you create an account), a wide array of servers to connect to, and even a handy app for speed testing from your Android or iOS device.

One of our favorites is the Ookla speed test, which has a strong reputation for consistency and for being one of the first speed tests on the web.

Ookla net speed test