Have you ever noticed that the speed of your "high speed" internet connection drops in the middle of a good download. Bandwidth throttling occurs when a server tries to limit the bandwidth used by a particular service. By downloading a testing tool on the internet, you can easily check if your ISP is limiting your internet connection speed.
Steps
Method 1 of 2: Using Measurement Lab Tools
Step 1. Visit Google Measurement Lab
M-Lab is an open platform designed to enhance the transparency of the Internet. There are several tests available here for both the average user and the advanced.
Step 2. In the lower left corner, click on the “Test your internet connection” link
Step 3. Choose a tool to test your connection speed and diagnose network traffic
The following test tools are available:
- NPAD (Network Path & Application Diagnostics) diagnoses for underlying network problems.
- The Network Diagnostic Tool will check your connection speed and perform sophisticated diagnostics of problems limiting it. This is a good option if you want to send a detailed fault report to your system administrator.
- Glasnost will help you find out if your ISP is blocking or restricting traffic for certain services. For now, you can define your ISP to block or limit traffic for the following email, HTTP, SSH, Flash video and peer-to-peer applications, including BitTorrent, eMule, and Gnutella.
- Pathload2 will show the maximum load on your connection. The available bandwidth is the maximum transfer rate at which you can send data while the channel is not congested.
- ShaperProbe lets you know if your ISP is using bandwidth management by limiting your connection speed after running out of a certain amount of traffic.
- WindRider will determine whether your ISP increases the priority of traffic to certain sites, services or content, or it cuts.
Step 4. Follow the instructions on the screen to complete each test
Please note that some of the tests are hosted on third-party sites.
Method 2 of 2: Using Switzerland Network Testing Tool
Step 1. Visit the Electronic Frontier Foundation website
This organization focuses on promoting network neutrality and provides a bandwidth measurement tool for “advanced” Internet users.
Step 2. Go to Our Work> Transparency> Other and click on Switzerland Network Testing Tool
You will be able to check the integrity of the data sent from your network and determine if your ISP is limiting your bandwidth. For example:
- If you would like to test the correctness of BitTorrent downloads, you can go to this page and download torrents that others are distributing from test machines.
- To check that your ISP does not obstruct the BitTorrent distribution, you can post a link to the torrent file on the wiki and distribute it with the Switzerland client enabled so that other users can find it on the wiki and download it with the Switzerland client running.
Step 3. Download the latest version
It can be identified by the highlighted letters.
Step 4. Select the file format you want to download
You can choose between.zip or.tgz.
Step 5. Extract the files and follow the instructions
You can find instructions for your OS in the INSTALL.txt file.
Advice
- There are other ways to check your bandwidth. Search for "bandwidth throttling" in your favorite search engine to see more options.
- If this is your hobby, you can join one of the network neutrality groups on the Internet. Again, a search for "net neutrality" will bring up many different resources and groups to help you combat ISP bandwidth limitation.