The network speed measured by the app is too low. What's wrong?

The speed corresponds to the slowest element in your network - if your Internet is the bottleneck in your network setup, it will be the Internet. But it can easily be your modem, router, and also phone or tablet (older devices aren't fast enough to handle fast Internet connections).

One note to wifi routers - even though the theoretical speed of various wifi technologies is much higher, typical maximal speeds are as follows - these numbers are only orientational, exact speeds depend on the router distance (the values below are for a distance within 3 meters without obstacles), number of wifi networks in the neighborhood (the more, the more interference and slower speeds), etc.:

  • 802.11b - ~5Mbps
  • 802.11g - ~25Mbps
  • 802.11n - ~75Mbps
  • 802.11ac - ~450Mbps (can vary depending on the exact configuration)

This means that if you have a 802.11b/g wifi router and a 40Mbps Internet connection, your router will be the bottleneck that limits your connection to 20Mbps over wifi. (So either buy a better router or get slower Internet connection and save some money on your bills.)

For more details about what speeds to expect from Wi-Fi, check this (very good) resource:

https://www.duckware.com/tech/wifi-in-the-us.html

Finally, even though the app tries to minimize the impact of outages and congestions of the testing servers used, it may happen that they get overloaded and the reported speed gets lower because of that.