Measuring Your Internect Connection Speed

This short document will describe how you can measure your Internet connection speed, as measured against a site in Tokyo, Japan. We will use a Web site specifically designed for this.

We need these statistics from you if you are applying for our job opening.

Before You Begin

Use the exact setup you would use for this job

Use the exact setup you would use for this job. In particular, if you have multiple computers, use the exact computer you would use for this job. The statistics obtained otherwise, even if they were obtained on a computer on the same home LAN, will be useless. Similarly, even if you used the laptop PC you would use for this job, but did the measurement at an Internet cafe insetad of at home, then the resulting numbers will not serve the purpose.

Close unnecessary applications

For the best results, close all the applications that access the Internet, except the Web browser that you are going to use for this test. What you need to watch out for in particular is P2P file sharing software, such as Lime Wire, because it tends to consume much bandwidth.

Now Let's Measure!

Go to Speedtest.net

Let's go to the website we are going to use to measure your Internet connection speed: SpeedTest.net. Your browser should display something like what you see on the right.

Notice it has a big partial map of the world (A), and below it a small global map (B). There is a while-lined rectangle in the small map, which region is shown in more detail in the big map. You can move this white-lined rectangle and the big map changes accordingly.

Find Tokyo

Move the white-lined rectangle in the small map near the upper right corner (A), so Japan is shown in the big map. You should see a pyramid-like shape at what appears to be Tokyo. Click on this pyramid (B). This will initiate the testing.


Be entertained while the testing is going on

When the testing starts, the screen changes and you will be entertained by some cute animation.

Get the numbers

When the testing ends, you will get a visual like the one here. Look at the region marked with the red rectangle (A) to obtain the following numbers:


Test again if you'd like

Those number are not constant; they constantly fluctuate, sometimes greatly, depending on myriads of variables. This is an inherent nature of the Internet.

If you'd like to, you can test again by clicking on the "Test Again" button in the upper right corner (B in the image above) when the testing ends. Of course, you can also re-start from the beginning.