A single speed test on Wi-Fi in the evening, with the kids streaming in the next room, doesn’t tell you much. Follow these steps to get results you can actually use — and that your provider will take seriously.
1. Use a network cable if you can
A cable removes Wi-Fi from the equation and shows your true line speed. Most laptops can connect with a USB-to-Ethernet adapter if they don’t have a network port. If you can’t use a cable, stand in the same room as the router.
2. Pause everything else
Stop streaming, game downloads, Windows updates and photo backups on other devices. Even one 4K stream uses 15–25 Mbps.
3. Close other tabs and apps
Background apps on the testing device can use bandwidth and processing power. On older phones and laptops, a busy device can also slow the test itself.
4. Turn off your VPN
A VPN routes traffic through another server, often overseas. That adds lag and lowers speed. Test without it to see your real connection.
5. Test at different times of day
Run tests in the morning, afternoon and evening (around 8 pm is peak time) over a few days. NetCheck saves your results on your device, so you can compare them on the speed test page.
6. Know your package
Enter your package speed in our test to see what percentage you’re getting. On fibre, results within about 10–20% of your package (on a cable) are normal. LTE and 5G packages are usually “up to” speeds that vary with signal.
7. Understand why tests differ
Different speed tests use different servers, file sizes and methods. A server in Johannesburg will give a different result to one in London. Compare like with like: the same test, the same device, the same spot.
Reading your results
- Download — matters most for streaming and browsing.
- Upload — matters for video calls, cloud backups and posting videos.
- Ping — lower is better; matters most for gaming and calls.
- Jitter — lower is better; high jitter means choppy calls.
- Ping under load — if this is much higher than ping, you have bufferbloat. See our ping guide.
Test your speed now
See your real download, upload and ping in 30 seconds.