Testing an Internet Connection Speed

Welcome to Apple Support Communities.

I use www.speedtest.net. For reference, my measured DSL download/upload speeds using speedtest.net are about 66 to 75% of the theoretical 'maximum' advertised for 3.0Mbit/512Kbit service from 'Deathstar', my DSL provider. Here are my measurements a moment ago. Most often, I measure closer to 2.3Mbit down and about .35Mbit up. These are wireless numbers, connected to a D-link DIR-655 draft-n router about 30 feet and a wall away from the computer.

Speedtest.net also has an iOS app for non-Flash Apple devices.

Message was edited by: kostby

Speedtest.net takes a snapshot. Or maybe 'short video clip' is a better analogy.

It IS a realistic indication of speed, as measured by their test, during those moments in time.

It's certainly better than "I have no idea".

So accumulate some snapshots over a period of time, and if most of them have similar results, AND your real-world observations confirm what the snapshots show, then you have a fair picture of what's going on.

I keep Activity Monitor open in my dock with the thumbnail image of Network Performance. When streaming video becomes laggy, it's usually accompanied by a sudden drop in (or a complete cut) network activity.

Here's a snapshot from the bottom of the full Activity Monitor page showing the Network Activity data.

Keep in mind that Activity Monitor measures data in KBYTES, so you have to multiply the Peak number shown (in my case 310KBytes) by 8 to get a rough idea (8*310KBYTES = 2.480MBITS maximum throughput)

The graph and Peak number indicate a total of combined download (green line) and upload (red line) performance, while Speedtest measures only one direction at a time.

Watching a YouTube video and running Speedtest.net about the same time, I saw the following speeds a moment ago:

So in this case, the Peak number above the graph is close (within +/-10%) to the Speedtest measurement.

Like a luxury performance car capable of 0-60 in 4.9 seconds, and a top speed in excess of 155 MPH, does that even matter if all you're doing is taking the kids a mile to school and stopping at the grocery store on the way home?

I don't honestly know what maximum performance your wired and wireless network components are capable of.

Or how much faster they COULD be with a faster 'pipeline' to the internet.

As long as you're happy with the performance and the service is reliable, I'm not sure it matters much.

So finally, back to trying to answer your original questions in your first post:

Is (my connection) fast enough for Apple TV?

Sorry, I really can't answer that one. Apple has a 14-day return policy, so I guess the logical thing is to give it a try. I have successfully watched many Netflix standard-definition movies streamed to a Nintendo Wii wirelessly connected to my router. The movies played fine without buffering. But again, that's SD, not HD.

How do I stop Safari from beachballing?

I use Click-to-Flash with Safari, to disable most Flash content unless I intentionally click and cause it to run or add the site to a whitelist. Investigate other browsers. Google Chrome, and Firefox are reasonable alternatives that may work better than Safari for some websites and online tasks. And try to keep the number of Safari tabs open at the same time to 10 or less.

Message was edited by: kostby

Both your Mac Pro and your MacBook Pro have built-in 10/100/1000BaseT Ethernet wired interfaces.

1000BaseT is also known as 'Gigabit' Ethernet, while 10(Megabit) and 100(Megabit) are references to older slower Ethernet standards for Ethernet over Twisted-pair wiring.

"Twisted-pair" refers to a communications-industry specification for copper "telephone" wire with a specified number of twists per length to minimize interference. Lots of detail here: http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia_term/0,2542,t=twisted+pair&i=53278,00.asp

The important thing to get from all those numbers is that if you're not using at least Category 5e Ethernet connection cables, you might be limiting your Ethernet connection speed between wired devices!

So in theory, a direct Ethernet cable of the proper specification, connected between MacPro and MacBook Pro COULD transfer large files between machines at up to 1,000 Mbits per second, up to 333 times faster than a 3.0Mbit DSL connection. You're probably never going to see anything approaching a 1000Mbit sustained transfer rate, but a wired Ethernet connection between machines should still be much much faster than downloading from the internet.

Now, as to why your wired and wireless connection download speeds are so similar?

Let me parse this carefully:

The 802.11/n WiFi protocol works pretty well,

for that relatively short speedtest.net test,

with the DSL speed, DSL modem, and wireless router you're using,

in your physical environment,

with your computers, operating systems, and software.

In other words, if you carefully timed dozens of identical large uploads and downloads to/from the internet, made with wired and wireless connections, you might see a greater difference, with the wired times expected to be quicker than the wireless times.

It could be that a 3.0Mbit DSL connection is not fast enough to see a difference between wired and wireless performance, with speedtest.net. You MIGHT also see a larger difference between wired and wireless if you had a 20Mbit or 50Mbit internet (Cable TV?) connection, but it's only a guess. I have no experience with it.

And a sincere thanks for the kind words. Fortunately, there are many many (far more) knowledgeable individuals in these forums who 'pay it forward' by providing useful information and guidance, as others have guided us.

Your download/upload speeds on Mac Pro and MBP seem to be about what I experience with "3.0Mbit DSL" service in central Indiana, so I'd say you are getting what you paid for. I'm not sure why the iPhone appears to have a much slower download speed, but my son's 2nd Generation iPod Touch achieves similar results, so it is not unexpected.

At 2.4Mbits measured download speed, you're getting about 80% of maximum.

At .4Mbits measured upload, speed you're also getting about 80% of maximum.

3,000,000 Mbits (millions of bits, sent or received, per second) is the theoretical maximum download speed (you download a song from the internet) of your connection.

512,000 (512Kbits, or .5Mbits) is the theoretical maximum upload speed (you sending information, such as sending a photo you've taken via email) of your connection.

Beachballs in Safari seem commonplace, especially if you're on 10.6.8.

I'm on a mid-2007 MacBook and returned to 10.6.7, because 10.6.8 slowed my apparent Safari performance significantly with many more beachballs than before.

I also have recently disabled all Safari add-ins, and that seems to have helped a bit.