In recent years there is a growing demand for professional measurement of internet speed independent of the service providers. The growing popularity of Szélessáv.net a service of the National Media and Infocommunications Authority is a great indicator of this: in the past year more than 1.5 million hardware instrument measurements and four hundred thousand software tests were conducted both around 2.5 times the number of measurements in the previous year (600 thousand and 160 thousand respectively).

These numbers do not include mobile measurements conducted continuously by the sensor-equipped cars of the NMHH measurement service - adding this would mean registered measurements in the millions per month. These results can be followed on several aggregated, regularly updated maps. The test results of sensor-equipped cars broken down by service providers as well as the hardware instrument and software measurement results can be browsed on separate maps.

These can be useful, for instance, when looking for the best internet service when moving to a new place. On the maps of Szelessav.net you can see which service provider provides the fastest internet service in the place where you live. It is worth checking this, because advertisements often display optimal internet speed which in reality can almost never be achieved. This number may be very different from the guaranteed internet speed indicated in the more detailed description of the service, which the provider actually commits to.

Before a complaint you should make a metering box measurement

It is also worth testing download and upload speeds for existing services and comparing them with the guaranteed values. For a software measurement you should register on the szelessav.net website for the system to record your measurement results and the exact location and time of the test. If the measured values fall short of the guaranteed speed over a longer period of time, the service provider can still reject your complaint, claiming that the fault may lie with your device or that you may have used the same internet output on several devices at the same time.

Measuring with a hardware instrument can solve this problem. You can order a metering box on the https://szelessav.net/hu/hardverpartner website free of charge. The metering box can be installed directly on the endpoint of the internet service, as described in the attached instructions, and will take measurements and record the results at different times of the day for weeks. If even these numbers are below the required internet speed, that is a strong basis for a complaint. The regular and traceable measurement result of the NMHH hardware instrument is known and accepted by the service providers too.

Greater speed, greater fluctuations

The measuring system of NMHH has been continuously developed since its launch in 2015. Currently, szelessav.net is capable of measuring 1 gigabit internet services with hardware and 2 gigabit services with software. From the browser of your mobile you can already test 5G networks too. However, in Hungary the available 5G network is built mainly on 4G technology; there are no stand-alone 5G networks, so measuring the 5G network by the authority is still in the testing phase.

In the experience of the metering service, higher internet speeds in recent years have also been associated with larger fluctuations: for a 1000 Mbps connection, a difference of 40-50 Mbps means only a few percent, which does not affect the user experience in most cases, but there are subscriptions where these speeds are the maximum, so in absolute terms, this is not a small difference at all.

In recent months both the background system and the speedometer of the software test have been updated. Besides measuring internet speed, latency, jitter and packet loss, szelessav.net also displays data after a measurement to better document the circumstances of the measurement, helping to investigate possible service failures.

The infocommunications authority recommends everyone to register before starting a measurement, and the system is still primarily designed for that purpose. At the same time, even without registration, by enabling location tracking in the browser window that pops up when a measurement is taken, the user can receive a measurement report that can be downloaded, saved or shared by email or even on Facebook.