We are tired of hearing that a family member, partner or friend has changed the operator because they offer an Internet connection with more megabytes, but the truth is that the vast majority have a hard time understanding what that means and what are other important aspects to when having a good experience with our internet connection. Among them, Internet speed and latency are undoubtedly two of the most important. But do we really know what each of these terms means, their difference and what they offer us?
In this sense, surely we have lived in our own skin or have heard a partner or friend how they complain about their own connection saying that after increasing the speed of it, they still encounter certain problems in the reproduction of certain video games online or make video calls, for example.
And we all want our Internet connection to be as stable and fast as possible. However, many aspects come into play , such as bandwidth, Internet speed and latency, among others. Now, what is each one and what can they give us in our connection.
The bandwidth is the capacity of our network, that is, the amount of data that is capable of transmitting in a given space of time. Therefore, and although it often happens, we should not confuse it with the speed of our connection. For everyone to understand better, we could compare it to the tube where the water passes. If the tube is of greater thickness or diameter, it will allow more water to pass in the same space of time than another that is thinner. Therefore, the higher our bandwidth, the more data can be transferred in the same period of time.
But does this not make our Internet speed faster? As we have just indicated, we should not confuse it with speed , since what this bandwidth does is allow us to have more capacity so that several devices can connect to our network and can share that bandwidth so that they all reach them The requested data. We must not forget that the bandwidth depends on the type of connection we have.
Having this first term clear, the next thing we need to know is what is the speed of our connection and latency, as well as their differences and what each of them brings us in our connection.
What is the speed of the Internet?
It is the speed with which data is transmitted through the media. That is, the speed of the Internet is the speed with which information is transmitted from the Internet . Therefore, following the previous example, if in a pipe of the same thickness the speed at which the water passes is greater, with the same bandwidth we will have more connection speed.
Of course, if on the contrary, the speed at which the data arrives is very low, the requested information will take longer to reach our equipment and therefore, the web requested from our browser, will take longer to load.
Therefore, when we talk that we have hired a 300Mbps Internet connection, it means that the speed with which data travels from the Internet is at a rate of 300 Mb per second . This is the speed offered by our operator, however, this speed may be limited if we have an ethernet cable whose maximum capacity is 100Mbps, so we could not navigate at the maximum contracted speed.
What is latency and how it affects our connection
The next important term is latency . We could say that it is the response time of the server to receive and send the requested content information. That is, the time that has elapsed since we made a request for information from our browser and comes back to show us the content of the requested website.
This means that the lower the latency, the better, since we will have a lower delay . However, it is not necessarily linked to faster Internet speed. That is, we can have a 600 Mbps speed connection with a latency of 50 ms, while in a 100 Mbps connection the latency can drop to 10 ms.
Latency can be affected by different factors , such as if we are connected through WiFi or an ethernet cable. And it is that the time it may take to send and receive information may vary depending on the type of connection.
This latency makes our experience when we are playing an online video game, watching a streaming movie or making a video call better or worse. The shorter that response time, the image and the sound will be the closest to real time, while if the latency increases, the delay also and the experience worsens.
How to measure the speed and latency of a connection
After all this, surely you are curious to know the exact Internet speed and the latency of your connection . Well, to measure both factors, all we have to do is use some of the online tools designed to measure these factors.
One of the ones that offers the most accurate results is speed test. From the previous link, all we have to do is click on the Start Speed Test button and wait for the process to make its own checks and offer us the result.
Once finished, we can see that on the one hand we are offered information about the download speed of our connection, the upload speed and the ping or latency of it.
