Windows 8 App: Network Speed Test by Microsoft Research

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Developed and released by Microsoft Research, Network Speed Test is a native app for both Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 that allows users to test and measure their network performance. It uses Microsoft’s servers all over the world to  provide you detailed information about the upload and download speeds of your internet connections, as well as its latency and throughput. Based on these information, Network Speed Test will also inform you what activities you might be able to do, such as stream music or video calls, etc.

Network Speed Test - Windows 8 App: Network Speed Test by Microsoft Research

To start testing, launch the app, and click or tap Start button in the middle of the meter. It will ask the permission first to access your location information to choose which server to use to perform the test, and will test the download speed (Figure 1) follow by the upload speed (Figure 2) right after.

Network Speed Test testing download - Windows 8 App: Network Speed Test by Microsoft Research
Figure 1 – testing download speed
Network Speed Test testing upload - Windows 8 App: Network Speed Test by Microsoft Research
Figure 2 – testing upload speed

And here is the final result of my home internet connection (Figure 3), with the activities info around the meter and the details about my network right next to it.

Network Speed Test result - Windows 8 App: Network Speed Test by Microsoft Research
Figure 3 – test result

Network Speed Test also keeps a history of the internet connections you’ve tested for easy comparison. It will also warn you if you are about to use the metered network, such as 3G or LTE connections, to test the network speed.

It’s also worth mentioning that certain characteristics of your device and the network information will be sent to Microsoft to help improve their understanding of network quality and availability.

Verdict

Overall, Network Speed Test is a fine designed simple app to measure your internet connection. It works perfectly well on both Windows 8 and Windows RT computers. It’s useful to keep, especially on a Windows 8 tablets like Surface. Not only does it provide you the info about the Wi-Fi hotspot you are connected to, but also measure it to find out how fast it is.

Publisher: Microsoft Research
Category: Tools
Age rating: 12+

1 COMMENT

  1. While it gives overall speed, it would be very useful if the equivalent of tracert were visible on demand. That way I could tell whether the 75ms Network Delay is in my building or at the remote Corp site or elsewhere. Corp says we are getting 20MB/sec but I only get 1.3 Mb/sec – nowhere remotely close to Corp’s declarations.

    Also, there’s no “shut it down” a.k.a. “Close/Exit” – why?

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