How to Test Internet Speed

A speed test only takes about 30 seconds, but a result that looks "bad" often just means the test was run under the wrong conditions rather than something being wrong with your internet.

Just want to test it?

Run SNAP's Internet Speed Test — it measures download speed, upload speed, ping, jitter, packet loss, and loaded latency in one go, right in your browser, with no app to install and no results ever stored on SNAP's servers.

What does a speed test actually measure?

A full speed test reports more than just one number:

• Download speed — how fast content reaches your device. Matters most for streaming, browsing, and downloading files.
• Upload speed — how fast you can send data out. Matters for video calls, uploading photos, and cloud backups.
• Ping — the round-trip time, in milliseconds, for a small packet of data to reach a server and come back. The number that matters most for anything real-time, like gaming or video calls.
• Jitter — how much that ping value fluctuates from one moment to the next. A connection can have decent ping on average but still feel choppy if jitter is high.
• Packet loss — the percentage of data that never arrives at all and has to be re-sent. Even a small amount causes stutter in calls and dropped frames in games.
• Loaded latency — ping measured while the connection is also busy downloading or uploading, which is what actually happens during real use. A connection with great "idle" ping can still lag badly under load — this is often the more honest number.

Getting an accurate result

Wi-Fi and a wired (Ethernet) connection can report meaningfully different numbers from the exact same internet plan — wireless interference and distance from the router can cut Wi-Fi speeds by 20–60% compared to a wired test. If you're troubleshooting whether your plan itself is the problem, test with a cable directly to your router first. Also close streaming, downloads, and cloud sync on any device sharing the connection — they compete for the same bandwidth your test is trying to measure, which can make a perfectly fine connection look slow.

What counts as a good speed?

For most households running several devices at once, 100+ Mbps download and 25+ Mbps upload gives enough headroom that speed alone rarely becomes the bottleneck.

Why results change between tests

Test servers, network congestion, time of day, and whatever else is using your connection all shift slightly with every run — this is normal, not a sign that something's broken. Running a test two or three times, ideally at different times of day, and looking at the average tells you much more than a single result, especially if you're trying to decide whether to contact your ISP.