The 5 best internet speed tests of 2022

Speedtest from Ookla, which also owns outage site, Downdetector, was one of the first broadband speed tests and offers a snapshot of download and upload speeds to an ISP via its website or a lightweight app for Windows 10 or macOS. It’s also available in 17 languages, and if you set up an account, you can keep track of your speeds over time. 

The service displays the current download and upload speeds and measurements for ‘ping’, ‘jitter’, and packet loss. There are also options to change the local server that the ISP speed test is conducted with — a configuration option that most other tests lack. Plus, results can be shared on social media.   

Ookla has some helpful explanatory notes for people who aren’t familiar with the ping test. It’s a latency test. Ookla says that less than 59 milliseconds (MS) ping is very good for online games. The FCC wants satellite broadband providers to deliver latency of below 100 ms to bid for a slice of its Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF). SpaceX says its Starlink satellites will provide a latency of 20ms to 40ms.   

Its website is useful for those who are curious enough to learn why a test on a mobile device returns a different result to a laptop or a device that’s physically connected to a router.  

Each test taken with Speedtest uses Ookla’s server network of over 14,000 servers and reports back on key network health metrics, Nick Turner, a technical trainer at Ookla, tells ZDNet. 

“There are Speedtest servers in virtually every country and major population center worldwide,” Turner said.  

He argues that Ookla’s distributed server network makes it more accurate than many other tests. 

“This enables us to more easily select ‘nearby’ servers or combinations of servers that are capable of delivering the sufficient bandwidth necessary to discover the most accurate maximum speeds to the device in question. Since our founding in 2006, an unparalleled total of more than 35 billion tests have been taken with Speedtest.”

Pros

•    It’s a general purpose broadband speed test in use since 2006
•    It’s not from an ISP or a service provider 
•    Users can select the host server from which to test their ISP’s speed test 

Cons

•    The site uses tech-lingo that some people might not understand 
•    It’s full of ads and ad trackers