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Ads bombard you from every corner of your day. High speed internet! Fast upload and download speeds! Do you really get these speeds with these services? What can affect the speed of your internet connection?

Upload and download speeds listed are usually best case, this means that if you are surfing in the afternoon, odds are others in your region of the country are doing the same, this will slow the internet down slightly for you. However, speed can be affected by a variety of things.

If you are connected to your ISP modem via USB, you can increase your speed by simply adding an Ethernet card and connecting to the modem via 10/100 Ethernet cables (verify your modem supports this before attempting most do).

Once you have the fastest possible connection setup for use, how can you tell how fast your internet connection is? There are many websites that can test the speed. One of the best I have found is www.speedtest.net.

The website opens and determines your physical location in the country. It will have little "cones" on a map and the one it determines to be physically closest to you will be yellow.

I also recommend selecting the test on at least two other areas closest to you and averaging your results together.

To understand, you will test both upload and download speeds. Download speed is the speed with which items are sent from the internet down to your computer (like web pages you open). Upload speed is how fast something goes from your computer to the internet (like emails being sent).

Speedtest will send a ping' signal and provide you the speed. Once it finishes that, it starts the download test. Upon completion of the download test the upload test automatically begins. When finished, it will display the final speed results to you along with your ping speed.

Why would I need to know these speeds? Well, there are many reasons. If you view movie clips (news sources, YouTube, etc) you may notice that you cannot view the movie without it skipping or stopping to load more. This indicates a slow download speed. Are you getting speeds in the neighborhood advertised by your ISP? If not, maybe this is signaling equipment problems.

What about VoIP services? To use Voice Over Internet Protocol services, you must meet a minimum upload and download speed requirement. If your service fails to meet this, you should not purchase this service. Vonage is one company that needs good upload and download speeds in order for your internet telephone to work properly.

There are several reasons why knowing your speed exist. This is a means to test your speed, however, do not take these results to your ISP and complain your speed isn't what was advertised. Remember, internet congestion, number of users on your home system, and other factors may result in reduced speeds. This is just a tool to measure your speed at that point of the day.

Learn more about this author, B. L. Babb.
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