Broadband Speed Test

In this world of budding technology, computers play a major role in everyone's life. A fast spreading technology associated with computers is the internet which has made life easy for the people and brings the world to their hands. The connection of internet mainly follows three ways DSL (Digital Subscriber Link), Cable and through means of satellite. DSL connection, also known as dial up connection is through the phone wire and a modem. In general, the download speed is 400 to 650 KBps per second and for the upload the speed is 128 to 256 KBps. The main drawback of this connection is slowing down of its network. Satellite is the high speed connection of all the three but it's too expensive to afford.

Broadband Connection and Speed Tests
A broadband connection is the most common and the easiest way for internet connection at high speeds. The download speed of this connection varies from 400KBps to 2 MBps and the upload speed is 128KBps on an average. People use various techniques and software to check their internet connection speed. Internet connection speed is nothing but the rate of transfer of data from the internet to the computer i.e. time taken for the transfer of data. This speed is calculated in Kbps (kilo bits per second) or KBps (kilo Bytes per second).

Many websites are dedicated for the purpose of finding internet connection speeds. They calculate the speed by performing two tests. The first test is mandatory while the second one is optional depending upon how fast the computer is able to upload or download a file. During the first test, the server sends a file to the computer and calculates the time it takes to receive the file. If it takes more than one second, the server returns the time which gives the speed of the internet connection. But if it takes less than one second, it is redirected to another web page to send another file and the calculation is done. This can be explained by a simple formula,

Internet connection speed = Amount of data / Time taken to download the data

The test can be also done by ping method often known as "ping test". Here, the internet service provider pings the IP address of the computer, takes records between certain time frame and compares with the other computers in that particular area. The ping test is the fastest way of calculating the speed of the broadband connection. For ping test to be done, java should be installed in the host's computer.

The speed of the connection may vary from time to time because internet is a wide area network connecting large number of computers and transfer of data occurs simultaneously among them. The speed may also vary due to various factors like the time when the download is performed, amount of congestion, downloading files while performing the test, execution of programs that uses bandwidth of the internet to perform other applications etc.

Hindrances
If there are any hindrances during a speed test, it is mainly due to the system's firewall. It may have a network configuration which does not allow the tester to conduct the test. So before conducting the test one should ensure that the network configuration is customized such that the transfer control protocol ports namely, tcp 8080 and 8081, are not blocked by the computer's firewall.

Many people opt for a broadband connection to make the internet faster and more convenient to use and also at a charge much similar to a normal DSL connection.