2/7/2024 0 Comments Internet speed test mac appLow: If any device on the same network is, for example, downloading a film or backing up photos to iCloud, the connection in some apps or services may be unreliable, such as during FaceTime video calls or gaming.Here’s how the company describes those evaluations: Plus, Apple interprets the numbers for you, offering Low, Medium, and High labels. Its numbers tend to be in the three-to-four digit range, making them easy to compare. Along with being a nod to the “revolutions per minute” measurement from car dashboards, RPM is a “higher is better” metric that’s easier to understand. Most interesting is “responsiveness,” which measures the number of roundtrips per minute (RPM) under load and attempts to provide a number that better measures the effects of latency without using a time measurement. (I usually see 12 there, though I once saw 20 for upload flows and, another time, 16 for download flows.) You’ll also see numbers for upload and download “flows,” which are reportedly the number of test packets used for the responsiveness tests. If you open Terminal and type networkQuality, it will report on upload and download “capacity,” which is a better term than “speed” because Internet connections are essentially pipes-the larger the pipe, the more traffic it can carry, just like a larger pipe can carry more water. In other words, we need to think about latency when our networks are under load, not when they’re idle.Īll that’s by way of introducing the networkQuality command-line tool that Apple introduced with macOS 12 Monterey. High-bandwidth activities can cause latency spikes that spell trouble for otherwise good connections for everyone on the network. Unfortunately, latency numbers reported by standard speed tests may not accurately reflect what you’ll see in the real world, such as when someone else on your network is enmeshed in a Zoom call, watching a 4K video stream, or backing up to an Internet backup service. Is a 100-millisecond latency good or bad? Low latency numbers are essential for smooth video calls and responsive gaming, though it’s difficult to connect a particular latency measurement with perceived performance. (Speedtest calls latency “ping.”) Latency measures how many milliseconds it takes for you to get a response from the remote server. Latency, which is often overlooked, can play a key role when bandwidth is otherwise sufficient for your purposes. All of those should provide roughly similar results for download and upload throughput, but those two numbers don’t tell the whole story. Ookla’s Speedtest may be the best known, and you can also turn to Google’s tool- search for “speedtest”-or Netflix’s Fast. There are numerous tools for testing Internet connection speeds. But how to quantify that? And if necessary, how can you fix it? If your video calls stutter or freeze, your Internet connection might be at fault. But because videoconferencing requires decent bandwidth in both directions, plus relatively low latency to keep the audio and video streams synced, it provides a clearer picture of your network quality. Even watching streaming video isn’t necessarily a good test, since it stresses only downstream bandwidth and streaming services use lots of tricks to avoid jitter and buffering. However, if you’re just loading Web pages or reading email, it’s unlikely you can get a sense of throughput. Videoconferencing has revealed to all of us how good-or poor-our Internet connections really are. Use Apple’s networkQuality Tool to Test Internet Responsiveness #1684: OS bug fix releases, Finder tag poll results, Messages identity verification, blocking spambots, which Apple services do you use?.#1685: Hidden secrets of the Fn key, Emergency SOS via satellite free access extended, RCS support in Messages, Rogue Amoeba icon evolution.#1686: Please support TidBITS, OS security updates, Apple services poll results, biking with an iPhone.#1687: Feature-rich OS updates, recovering from a crashing bug in Contacts, Zoom for Apple TV, how much do you use widgets?.#1688: Former Apple engineer on watchOS 10, Apple hardware testing tool, Stolen Device Protection, Apple Watch sales halted, smart TV privacy abuses.
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