Frazier Mountain Internet Service
Test the Speed of Your Connection to Us

Why Test the Speed of your Connection?

There are many factors that determine how fast your receive data over the Internet. Some of these factors include:

• The speed (baud rate) of your modem
• The type of data you are receiving or sending
• The performance of your Internet Provider's network and connection to the Internet
• The performance of the Internet site to which you are receiving or sending data
• How busy the Internet lines are between you and the site to which you are receiving or sending data

By reviewing this list, you can see that many factors are out of your control as well as our control as your Internet provider. However, we can ensure that your connection to us is optimal. Some of the factors that can affect your connection to us include:

• The speed of your modem
• The quality of the phone lines to us.
• The weather (well, at least to the extent that it might affect the quality of the phone lines between us).
• The quality of your modem.
• The degree of compatibility between your modem and our modems.
• The software and hardware settings you use to connect to us

We can assure you that we are committed to ensuring that our connection to the Internet will provide you with optimal performance. However, we also need to make sure that your connection to us is optimal. This page will help you determine if this is the case.

How to Test the Speed of your Connection

We can test the speed your connection to us by having you download a file from our server to your computer. Since there are no other computers or networks to go through with this type of transfer, we can be certain that we are only seeing how quickly we are sending data to you. This test should take a few minutes to perform.

Here's what to you do:

1. Make sure you're not performing any other tasks on your computer while the test is running (i.e., don't be downloading a file while your running this test).
2. When you are ready, click on the button below that says "Test the Speed of Your Connection"
3. Your Browser will display a window that asks you what you want to do with the file. You will need to choose "Save to Disk".
4. Your Browser will suggest a file name of "testfile.zip" and suggest a location. Accept this information and note where the file will be saved. (Note: Do not try running this test by downloading the file to a floppy diskette as your transfer rate will be much slower than downloading the file to your hard disk).
5. Your computer will start downloading the file. If you are using Netscape, it will tell you the transfer rate as it downloads the file. If your browser does not tell you the transfer rate, you will need to time the transfer and calculate the transfer rate (see below).
6. Take note of the transfer rate just before the file finishes transferring. It is important to note it and the end of the transfer and not at the beginning of the transfer to get an accurate reading of the transfer rate.
7. After the file is done downloading, you should delete it off of your computer's hard disk to save space.

Calculating your Transfer Rate

If your Browser (i.e. Netscape) tells you your transfer rate while you are downloading the file, just take note of the rate immediately before the transfer finishes. In general, your modem should download something around:

If your Browser does not tell you the transfer rate, you will need to calculate it. To do this , begin timing the transfer as soon as it starts (when you finish giving it the filename) and then stop the timing as soon as the file is 100% downloaded. Then calculate the transfer rate by dividing 400 by the number of seconds it took to download the file. The result is the approximate number of KB (kilobytes) per second that were transferred.

For example, if it took 2 minutes, 5 seconds (125 seconds) to download the file, then your transfer rate is:

Interpreting the Results

You can determine if your connection is running appropriately by consulting the table below.

If your results are significantly below the "norm", then you do not have an optimal connection to us and should try to determine the cause (try posting a message to the Users Group Mailing List or support@frazmtn.com if you're not sure what to do).

Copyright© 2000 by Frazier Mountain Internet Services.
Web Page Authored by Frazier Mountain Internet Service.
Document Last Revised March 7, 2000