
Does your ISP deliver the speed you pay for? It’s rather easy to test
your broadband internet speed. However, there are a few things to keep
in mind. For one, ISPs usually promise an “up to” speed, so you can’t
expect top performance at
all times, that’s part of the
deal. During high traffic times your ISP will suffer from high loads
and will certainly not be able to deliver the maximum speed. Thus you’d
best perform different speed tests at different time points, to see
whether you ever reach the top speed. Also, when running a speed test,
make sure no other applications are using the internet, else the result
will not be accurate.
Speedtest.net
is a good place to test your internet speed. They operate through
servers all over the world, so you can connect to a server near you,
which increases the accuracy of your result.

As
you may realize, your internet speed does not only depend on your ISP,
it also depends on the hardware and software used on your end of the
line. If you are using hardware provided by your ISP, there shouldn’t be
a problem. The bottleneck for speed often sits in the connecting
computer.
Here are a few tips
to Increase the Speed of Your Internet Connection
(1) Connecting Port
This
may seem obvious, but you should connect to the internet though an
ethernet port, rather than a serial, parallel or USB port. If ethernet
is not an option, it may be advisable to update your hardware
(2) Enough RAM
Make sure your system memory can handle the
load! If you want to browse fast, you will need to close other
applications in case your RAM is maxed out.
(3) Fast Browser
Mozilla
based browsers generally are among the fastest browsers, while still
being comfortable to use. Whichever open source browser you pick, make
sure you don’t overload it with extensions or addons, those will just
slow your browser down dramatically. On the other hand, if speed and RAM
are not an issue, go for the luxury!
Also there are a number of tweaks and addons to increase the speed of your browser.
(4) Increase Speed under Windows XP Pro
Windows
XP Professional reserves 20% of your bandwidth for services like
updates or spyware checks. If you would like to exploit this reserve, do
the following:
1. Click [Windows] + [R] and type gpedit.msc in the Run window.
2. Under Computer Configuration expand the Administrative Templates.
3. Go to Network and click the QoS Packet Scheduler tab.
4. Double-click on Limit Reservable Bandwidth and enable it.
5. Finally change the Bandwidth limit to 0% and click Apply.
6. Reboot your computer and enjoy.
(5) Tweak Tools
There
are a number of programs that promise to increase your internet speed.
They may work, they may not. They all apply a number of changes to
optimize your network settings. Whether or not they will really improve
your internet speed or which one will work the best for you greatly
depends on your system, hence it’s difficult to recommend an
application.
For further reading I will refer you to a set of articles found on About.com. Start with
DSL and Cable Broadband Speed Tweaks and work your way through the links at the bottom.
Which tools and tweaks worked best for you?