Internet speed testing

Verifying your internet speed from your on-line control panel

The first thing you should do is to check the speed your internet connection from your premises to the internet. Go to your control panel at https://control.megganet.com

Log in with the username and password credentials in your welcome letter. If you need these, just ask and we will send them to you by TXT or WhatsApp (not by email as it is too insecure).

Click on ‘Internet‘ in the menu at the top line.

Select ‘Broadband‘.

Select the Gear Icon at the bottom right (under Actions).

Then select ‘Sync Profile History‘.

You should then get these results;

The discrepancy between the 80MB/s and the 78.124MB/s is the administrative overhead which is usually a few KB/s and is required on all network connections.

Apart from that, you can see the true internet speed. This particular client registered 61MB/s on one Wi-Fi connected device and 3MB/s on another Wi-Fi connected device.

We see a similar screen when we check your connection speed from our end.

FTTP connections will connect at the speed you have ordered and if your test results are significantly lower, the issue will almost certainly be your equipment.

SoGEA speeds between your router and the internet will always be lower than the speed of service you ordered. This is because the speed will degrade due to line length and other conditions.

Disconnect all other equipment from your router

If you have equipment accessing to your router / internet service, it may be in the process of downloading or uploading so they will have a negative effect on your results.

Close all browsers and all other programs on your computer

If you have other browsers or web pages open, your results may be affected negatively. Also it would be a good idea to ensure that there are no programs on the testing computer which are using the internet – these include email programs, torrents, active VPN’s etc. Also, if you can, pause the Windows updates.

Connecting your equipment

The best way to get the most accurate reading is by connecting your computer directly to your router with a network cable. We normally levee a Yellow cable connected to the router for you. If you don’t have a network cable for this, just give Megganet a call. However, if you do not have a cable or your device has no RJ45 network port, you can still do a speedtest – the results will not be as accurate.

Speed testing using a Wi-Fi connected device

IN ALMOST ALL CASES WHERE A CLIENT HAS CALLED US OUT TO A SLOW INTERNET CONNECTION WHERE THE CLIENT HAS MEASURED THE INTERNET SPEED USING WI-FI, THE CLIENTS EQUIPMENT OR PROCEDURE HAS BEEN THE CAUSE OF THE LOW SPEEDS.

THESE ARE CHARGEABLE CALL OUT’S.

PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING CAREFULLY TO AVOID UNNECESSARY FEES.

If you must use a Wi-Fi device to test your internet speed, please ensure it is connected to the Wi-Fi from the router and not a remote Wi-Fi access point.

• If you must use a Wi-Fi device to test your internet speed, please ensure it is connected to the Wi-Fi from the router and not a remote Wi-Fi access point.
  
  
• Make sure there are no other devices connected to the router.
  
  
• Make sure you are within 2 meters of the Router.
  
  
• Make sure the device you are using (mobile phone, iPad, tablet, laptop etc) has line of sight of the router.
  
  
• Remember, the a device connected to your router by Wi-Fi WILL NOT be able to use the full speed of the internet so your results WILL be lower and may be as much as 50% lower.
  
  
• Also, make sure the 4G service on your mobile device is disabled for the duration of the test.
  
  
• Make sure the device you are using is capable of handling the Wi-Fi speed of the router. We have had clients with 330MM/s down internet speed getting less than 50MB/s down on their phone. This was because the phone was a Wi-Fi 3 device with a maximum download speed of 54MB/s down.
  
  
• Modern Wi-Fi routers may also claim ridiculous Wi-Fi speeds which your mobile device may simply never attain. This is because the Wi-Fi Router may transmit on several different frequencies simultaneously. Usually, a mobile device only uses a single frequency. For example, A modern Router may transmit at 2.4Ghz (450Mb/s to 600MB/s), 5GHz (1300MB/s) and 6GHz (9.6GB/s). Also, within each there are Wi-Fi standards such as 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11n, or 802.11ac.
  
  
• Test on multiple devices if you can. We have had complaints from clients, of very low Wi-Fi speeds on their mobile device. In one case it was 1.5MB/s down and this was on a 330MB/s FTTP service! Our engineer visited and was able to demonstrate 180MB/s on another phone.

Prepare your equipment

For the best results, restart your router. This clears out any latent activity and cache in your router and resets its connection to the internet.

Speed testing sites

There are many internet speed testing websites which test the speed between your device and one of their servers. Each of these servers is in a different location and the speed testing programs use different paths to get to them. This means that you will obtain different results from different speed testers!

Biased results

We have discovered that certain internet providers optimise speed testers so that the connections between your internet Point Of Presence (POP, essentially, your Router) and their own servers. Although this is reasonable, it is good for testing connections for issues.

If you are reporting a speed issue to us, we will only accept results from our own speed tester at speedtest.megganet.com as this connects directly to our system and we can access it for any prevailing issues. Also, your speed test results are stored on our system and you can view your historical results from within your control panel.

Megganet always recommend you to check your speed from a variety of sites in other than Megganet sites so you can get a good average.

Speed checkers

This is a small sample of speed checkers you can use.