Is your ISP throttling back your broadband connection? Here's how to find out.
Need a cheap way to see if your broadband provider is ripping you off with service or being honest? There are many free tools on the market that will let you do just that. In a nutshell, these tools will, via your browser, let you check the speed at which your provider is sending you information from the internet (your download speed), and the speed at which you can send information to the internet (your upload speed).
One of the best seems to be from the FCC. Their Consumer Broadband Test site is powered by Ookla, but, it feels a bit easier to use. All you do is click to their site, and for free (love that word!) a test runs and reports back if you are really getting what you paid for. There are other services that will do the same thing, and Broadband DSL Reports lists hundreds of them by country in case you want to do some compare tests. We did and the FCC site test powered by Ookla was in the same range as other tests we tried.
So, keep RCN, Comcast, Verizon honest and do a simple test. You might find you need to have a conversation with your provider to insure you get exactly what you paid for; now that’s a value the Frugal Tech loves.
That’s a pretty handy tool there. Wonder if there’s one for the UK….
It’s amazing how many ISP will try to fiddle your connection. And it’s so easy to compare broadband packages these days, you’d think they’d do all they could to keep their customers. Good customer service is an excellent start, not fiddling the connection also helps.
In my experience, ISPs justify a lot of what they do by slapping a “Fair usage policy” stick on just about everything…
Nic – Thank you for joining the conversation with your comment! The only one I know that claims to be in the UK is Broadband Speed Checker.
Thanks, I’ll give it a look.