What Is A Speed Test? Cellular Speed Testing Explained
CoverageMap.com is built around community-submitted speed tests.
But, what is a speed test?
What Is A Speed Test?
A speed test is a measurement of how fast your wireless connection is.
Speed tests can be used to measure cellular connections, Wi-Fi connections, and wired connections.
Four main variables are measure during a speed test:
- Download speed
- Upload speed
- Latency
- Jitter
Let’s walk through each variable so you understand what they mean.
Download Speed
Download speed is how quickly your device can receive data from the Internet.
Download speed is typically measured in megabits per second (Mbps).
You are downloading data anytime you are loading a web page, browsing social media, watching a YouTube video, scrolling through TikTok, or receiving a Snapchat.
The faster your download speed, the faster content is transferred to your phone, leading to quicker download times for files, less buffering for videos, and faster loading times for pages.
What speeds are good download speeds?
A great way to understand download speeds is to understand what speeds you need to stream certain qualities of video:
- To stream a video at 480p quality, you need a speed of 1.5 Mbps or higher
- To stream video at 720p quality, you need a speed of 3 Mbps or higher
- To stream video at 1080p quality, you need a speed 5 Mbps or higher
- To stream video at 4K quality, you need a speed 15 Mbps or higher
For most everyday tasks, a download speed of 5 Mbps or higher will be plenty fast.
What affects download speeds?
Download speeds can be affected by various factors.
The type of connection you have (LTE, low-band 5G, mid-band 5G, or mmWave), the distance you are from the cell tower, the capabilities of your device, the amount of network traffic, and even obstacles between you and the cell tower can all affect download speeds.
Upload Speed
Upload speed measures how fast your phone can send data to the Internet.
It is also measured in megabits per second (Mbps).
You are uploading data to the internet anytime you are publishing a post on social media, sending a picture to a friend over iMessage or WhatsApp, sending a Snapchat, live streaming on Instagram, or FaceTiming your grandfather.
The faster your upload speed, the quicker your content is shared to the Internet.
Most people don’t upload data that frequently. As a result, you can typically be fine with slower upload speeds. An upload speed of 3 Mbps would likely meet the needs of a majority of people.
However, if you do a lot of video calls, then it is beneficial to have faster upload speeds so that your video quality looks better. An upload speed of 10 Mbps would be much better for a video call.
What affects upload speeds?
Upload speeds are affected by the same factors as download speeds.
The type of connection you have (LTE, low-band 5G, mid-band 5G, or mmWave), the distance you are from the cell tower, the capabilities of your device, the amount of network traffic, and even obstacles between you and the cell tower can all affect your upload speeds.
Latency
Latency, sometimes called ping, is the amount of time it takes for a user to receive a response from a server.
In the case of a mobile network, latency would be the time it takes for a data packet to go from the server to your phone and then back to the server.
Latency is measured in milliseconds (ms).
What is a good latency?
You always want your latency to be as low as possible.
That means you have a good connection to the server and everything will feel snappy and responsive.
In terms of latency for cellular connections:
- 30ms or less is great
- 30ms to 50ms is good
- 50ms to 100ms is okay
- 100ms or higher is poor
Low latency is particularly important for real-time applications, like video calls, online gaming, and certain types of cloud-based work. Having high latency in these scenarios can lead to noticeable delays, lag, or unsynced audio and video.
What affects latency?
Latency is affected by factors such as how much physical distance a data packet must travel, what type of connection you have (LTE, low-band 5G, mid-band 5G, or mmWave), how much available capacity your connection has, and the amount of traffic on the network.
Jitter
Jitter is a measure of how much variability there is in the latency of the connection.
Like latency, jitter is also measured in milliseconds (ms).
A low jitter means you have a stable connection with consistent performance.
A high jitter means there is high variability in your connection, and you may experience negative side effects like poor voice quality in VoIP calls, video freezing or buffering during video streaming or conferencing, or lag in online gaming.
In most cases, a jitter of 30ms or less is considered acceptable.
A jitter of 20ms or less is considered good.
What Can I Use A Speed Test For?
You can use a speed test to:
- Verify you have coverage and that data is working
- Compare performance between carriers
- Troubleshoot your network if you’re experiencing issues
- Determine if you’re in a good location for a video call or to download a large file, or if you should wait for an opportunity when you have a faster connection
- Identify network upgrades
How Do I Run A Speed Test?
Now that you know the four factors a speed test measures, download speed, upload speed, latency, and jitter, how do you actually run a speed test?
The easiest way to run a speed test is to use a speed testing application.
You may consider checking out our partner, SpeedSmart, which is a completely free speed test app available for both iPhone and Android.
When you download the app, simply make sure you are connected to the network you want to test (either a Wi-Fi network or your cellular connection), and then tap “Start Test.”
SpeedSmart, or your speed testing app of choice, will then perform a series of tests to measure the download speed, upload speed, latency, and jitter of your current connection.
You may notice your speed test results will change if you go to a different location, you swap to a different device, or you change to a different network.
What Do I Do With My Speed Tests?
Most people use speed tests to compare the performance between different cellular networks in a given area.
If you’d like to help build a better, more accurate map of the cellular networks for everyone, you may consider uploading your speed tests to CoverageMap.com. Your tests will instantly appear on the map and help everyone get a better picture of how your carrier performs in the areas you tested.
You can learn more about how to contribute to the crowd-sourced coverage map here.