Disclaimer

Results are not a guarantee

The number you see is the speed that reached your browser during the test. It is not a measurement of the speed your provider sells you, and a low reading is not by itself proof that they are under-delivering.

Things that lower a reading legitimately

• Wi‑Fi. The single most common cause. Distance, walls, an old router or a crowded 2.4 GHz band can halve a connection before it reaches your device.
• Other people on the connection. A download or a stream running elsewhere in the house takes its share.
• Your device. Older phones and laptops cannot process very fast connections, and a busy processor slows the test itself.
• Protocol overhead. Roughly five per cent goes to the packaging around your data. Every browser based test reads slightly low for this reason.
• The route. This test talks to Cloudflare. If your provider has a congested path to Cloudflare specifically, the result reflects that path rather than your line.
• Time of day. Evening congestion in your neighbourhood is real and shows up here.

If you are raising a complaint

Give yourself the strongest evidence. Test on a wired connection if you can, close other applications, run the test several times across different times of day, and record the results with timestamps. A single reading is easy for a provider to dismiss; a consistent pattern is not.

Very fast connections

Above roughly a gigabit, the browser becomes the bottleneck rather than the line. If you are on such a plan, treat the result as a lower bound.

The tools

The ping test measures an HTTPS round trip, not an ICMP ping, because browsers cannot send ICMP. It usually reads a little higher than a command line ping. IP geolocation is an estimate from registry data and frequently points at a regional hub rather than an actual location.

No affiliation

Zovan Speed Test is independent. Measurements run against Cloudflare's public speed endpoints; all product names and trademarks belong to their respective owners.

No professional advice

Content on this site is general information about home and mobile networking. It is not legal, contractual or professional advice about your relationship with your provider.