Questions, answered.

Download is how fast data travels to you — streaming, browsing, game downloads. Upload is how fast you send data out — video calls, cloud backups, posting files. Most home plans are asymmetric: a "300 Mbps" cable plan might upload at only 20 Mbps, which is why your calls can stutter even when Netflix looks perfect.

Megabits vs megabytes — and there are 8 bits in a byte. Divide your Mbps by 8 to get real-world file speeds: a 200 Mbps connection downloads at about 25 MB/s, so a 5 GB game takes roughly 3½ minutes. ISPs advertise in bits because the number is 8× bigger.

Ping (latency) is the round-trip time for a tiny packet to reach a server and come back, measured in milliseconds. Under 20 ms is excellent, 20–50 ms is perfectly good, and beyond 100 ms you'll feel delay in games, calls and even page loads. Ping depends on distance and routing — not on how big your plan is. Paying for more Mbps does not lower your ping.

Jitter is how much your ping varies from packet to packet. A connection that alternates between 15 ms and 80 ms is far worse for live apps than a steady 50 ms. Under 5 ms of jitter feels flawless; high jitter is the classic cause of robotic voices on calls and rubber-banding in games. Congested Wi-Fi is the most common culprit.

Plans are sold as "up to" speeds measured over a wire in ideal conditions. In real homes the gap comes from: Wi-Fi loss (often 30–70% at range), old routers that can't push modern speeds, peak-hour congestion in your neighborhood, and background traffic from other devices. Test wired next to the router — if it's still far below the plan, that's a conversation with your ISP. Our testing guide shows how to build a solid case.

Less than the ads suggest. Browsing and email: 10 Mbps. HD streaming: 5–8 Mbps per stream. 4K streaming: 25 Mbps per stream. Online gaming: only ~25 Mbps, but low ping and jitter matter far more. Working from home with video calls: 50–100 Mbps with at least 10 Mbps upload. A busy 4-person household is comfortable at 200–300 Mbps; beyond that you're mostly buying headroom for downloads.

Because the internet is a shared road. Each run rides through momentary neighborhood congestion, your own devices' background chatter, Wi-Fi interference, and varying server load. A 10–15% spread between runs is completely normal. That's why the guide recommends three runs and taking the median — trends matter, single numbers don't.

Yes — Wi-Fi is usually the biggest bottleneck in the house. Distance, walls, floors, mirrors, and interference from neighbors' networks all eat throughput; losing half your plan's speed two rooms away is typical. The 5 GHz band is much faster up close but fades quicker; 2.4 GHz reaches farther but tops out lower. If wired is fast and wireless isn't, see the Wi-Fi fixes in the Help Center.

Completely — and this doubles as our privacy policy, because it fits in a paragraph. SpeedPulse runs entirely in your browser. There are no accounts, no cookies, no analytics beacons and no ad networks. This demo build goes further: results are generated locally and nothing is transmitted or stored anywhere. When you close the tab, the data is gone.

A monthly spot-check is enough for a healthy line. Test more deliberately when something changes: after switching plans or ISPs (verify you got what you bought), after moving your router or adding mesh nodes (measure the improvement), or whenever things feel slow (test wired vs wireless to find the bottleneck). Morning-vs-evening comparisons reveal neighborhood congestion patterns.