Why is it that when you do an internet speed test, it says you are not receiving the amount of bandwidth you should be getting? Is the speed test faulty? Is your internet provider ripping you off?
It is possible that your internet provider is ripping you off, but more likely a slower than expected test result is due to several factors outside their control.
Think of your internet as a traditional mail system. Every time you enter a web address in your browser, your computer is sending messages and receiving replies. These messages can be thought of as letters. Just like a letter needs to be sent in an envelope with proper recipient address, these computer messages also require packaging and other information, i.e. the sender’s address and receiver’s address. This additional information is what we call overhead, although not part of the actual message, it must be sent with the message for it to be successfully delivered.
A good demonstration of overhead can be seen when you are forced to divide a large message into smaller ones to get it to send. Just as the post office has a limit on the size of a parcel that can be sent, computer messages also have a similar limit (usually 1.4KB). This means you can’t send a 1GB file in one message, it must be split into multiple 1.4KB chunks and each chunk individually packaged. The total KB of all the individual messages will equal more than the original 1GB—with a general increase of 2% to 10% in total size depending on the type of application you are using.
There are other factors that can affect your speed test as well. If there are people using the internet at the time of the test, this would reduce the result of the speed considerably. For example with two people streaming a YouTube video at medium quality, you would see speed test results drop to 7-8Mb on a 10Mb connection. Factors such as the distance of the speed test server, how busy the speed test server is at the time, and congestion on the network can provider further inaccuracy.
Generally speaking you can expect to see a difference of 10%-30% when running a speed test. If you run multiple speed tests consecutively, you will see the results vary every time. The bottom line is a speed test will never show you the true performance of your internet connection. They should only be used as a guideline to help detect performance-related issues. If you run a speed test and see speeds constantly bellow half of your advertised speed, even when there is no one else using the connection, then there may be a larger issue at play and you should have your provider check it out.
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Author: Malik Ahmed