Furthermore, Wi-Fi interference issues can often cause rapid fluctuations in online speed test results.

Try to avoid testing the imperfections of your Wi-Fi connection rather than your broadband connection by running the speed test on a device that is connected to your router via an Ethernet cable. As described in our Wi-Fi optimisation page, your Wi-Fi network could be the weak link in your broadband chain so you’ll end up measuring the speed of your Wi-Fi connection rather than your broadband connection. For example, try running tests mid-morning or mid-afternoon. Try running speed tests at different times of the day, and on different days, and take the best results. Beware running speed tests at peak times when the servers used to provide speed tests could be heavily loaded. Running a speed test at different times (and taking the best results) is likely to provide more accurate results. It can be very difficult to control all devices, for example, a device could be downloading a software update or a set-top box could be downloading TV and video content. These include mobile phones, tablets, desktop PCs and laptops, smart watches, smart TVs, set-top boxes and games consoles. Most households have an increasing number of Internet-enabled devices, each of which could be accessing your broadband connection while you perform a speed test. Try to make sure that no other devices on your network are using your broadband connection while you run a speed test. It is often difficult to know if another application is using your Internet connection, so running the speed test on different occasions (and taking the best results) may help to provide more accurate results. Make sure that you have no other programs or applications running in the background when running our online broadband speed test. These will help to avoid severely underestimating your broadband speeds. Here are our recommendations to get the most accurate results from our speed test. Welcome to our broadband speed test, provided by Ookla.

Broadband test speed