Why you should not test the speed of the Internet with your mobile

Something very common whenever we hire the Internet or simply to check if it works well, is to perform a speed test. This allows us to know how much we get both downstream and upstream, and compare it with what we have contracted. If, for example, we have a fiber optic rate of 500 Mbps and that test reflects only 100 Mbps, something is wrong. Now, why shouldn’t you test your Internet connection with your mobile ? In this article we are going to talk about it.

Why you should not test the speed of the Internet with your mobile

Doing a speed test with your mobile is not a good idea

Nowadays we use the mobile phone for almost everything. They can work as well as a computer for many things, since they have applications to enter the bank, make purchases, social networks, browsers… However, the power of their components is not the same. If we focus on network components, there the difference can be very large.

First of all, when you do an Internet speed test with your mobile, you will have to do it over Wi-Fi . That, at first, no longer gives you results as accurate as if you do it by cable. Especially you will have a considerable drop in speed if you do that test far from the router.

But even under equal conditions, even if you do a speed test wirelessly with the computer and with the mobile, you will see that with the latter the results will not be as accurate. At least under normal circumstances. And that leads many users to do a speed test with their mobile and see that they receive much less than what was contracted and they worry.

Evitar problemas de velocidad al usar el Wi-Fi

hardware limitations

The problem is that mobile can act as a bottleneck . That is, the ability of the phone to achieve maximum speed is more limited than a computer. It is true that there are many models and there are some that can offer really good performance, but if we speak in general terms, in an average phone, you will not achieve the maximum speed that you have contracted.

And the same thing that we mentioned happens with any tablet, for example. If you have more contracted Internet speed than these devices can handle, the speed test results will be inaccurate. You are going to receive a lot less and you are going to think that your connection is malfunctioning, that the operator does not offer you what you really pay for, etc.

One of the clear hardware limitations is that not all mobile devices are dual band . This means that you connect through the 2.4 GHz band, so you will never achieve the great speed that you could with 5 GHz. But also, they are not compatible with the latest protocols, such as they are Wi-Fi 6, except for the most current and high-end phones.

Therefore, if you want to do a Wi-Fi Internet speed test, the ideal is to do it from a computer that has a good network card and do it as close as possible to the router. This will give you results that are closer to reality. However, the ideal to have the best results is to do this test from the computer, through an Ethernet cable.