How does this Cricket Wireless speed test work?

The Cricket Wireless speedtest begins by identifying your Cricket Wireless connection and then selects the speed test server closest to your area.

When you click the GO button it will send packets of data from the speed test server to your device.

The Cricket Wireless speedtest is powered by Ookla and calculates the ping (latency), download speed and upload speed from your device and the selected test server.

The total that it takes this packet to arrive and return from the server determines your Cricket Wireless internet speed.

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How reliable is the Cricket Wireless internet speedtest?

The Cricket Wireless Speedtest is powered by Ookla which one of the most popular broadband connection speed test and provides accurate and consistent testing experience and results.

By automatically selecting a speedtest server closest to your location, this will eliminate latency and bottlenecks that may distort performance metrics.

Ookla has a worldwide network of over ten thousand speedtest servers in more than 190 countries.

Source: Ookla reliable speedtests

To improve the accuracy of your speed test, we would recommend that you run the Cricket Wireless speed tester from a device connected directly into the Cricket Wireless gateway modem or router.

This will help give a more precise reflection on the performance of the Cricket Wireless broadband connection and assist to rule out the Wifi related issues.

If you cannot connect your device directly to your Cricket Wireless modem or router, ensure that the device you are running the test is as near the modem or router as possible. Also run the speedtest at least twice and from two different devices to make sure that the fault is not on one of the devices.

Exactly what do the speed test results from my Cricket Wireless speed test mean?

What is the Ping result mean?

Ping is sometimes referred to as latency which in connectivity terms means the time (or delay) it takes for data to travel from one device to another. In this instance, from your device using the Cricket Wireless broadband connection to the nearby server.

Ping sends data to another computer (in this case, the speedtest server) and measures in milliseconds (ms) how long it takes to get a reply back.

If the other computer is very far away or the network is busy then it will take more time to receive a response and the ping value in ms will be high.

The Cricket Wireless speedtest will automatically choose a speed test server closest to your location which will eliminate latency and bottlenecks that can skew speed test results.

A fast ping (low ms value) means a faster Cricket Wireless broadband connection.

What is a good ping result?

A good ping rate to a device in the same city should be lower than 20ms. A normal ping rate between cities you’d expect to see ping values between the values of 30-60ms, and between continents that figure can climb to over 200ms.

The speedtest above will show you the location of the test server so that you may determine whether your ping result is good.

What is Jitter?

All data (e.g. an email, image, video, voice call, etc) is sent across the internet as a series of small packets. These packets generally move at a constant rate and are put back together at the destination device.

Jitter is the rate of delay during the transmission of the packets.

Think of it like running a tap and then increasing or decreasing the flow rate of the water coming out. When the flow becomes irregular (because of the increasing and decreasing), the Jitter metric goes up – which is not a good thing.

You don’t normally notice jitter as networking devices can smooth it out but you will notice jitter whilst on a video and voice calls because the internet connection will momentarily hang or break up.

Cricket Wireless Download and Upload speed metrics explained

Read More:What does the Download and Upload speed metric on my Cricket Wireless speed test actually mean?

Likely causes of Cricket Wireless slow internet connection speed

There may be a number of reasons why the Cricket Wireless internet connection is not performing as expected. While we cannot tackle every possible cause, we have listed a number of common possibilities.

Based on your Cricket Wireless broadband internet setup, some of the recommendations may not be applicable in your scenario. We hope that they may trigger food for thought or get you on the right path to fix the problem.

Is it your Cricket Wireless internet connection that is slow or is it your device (PC/laptop/phone)?

You may need to consider how many applications are currently running on your device that could be utilizing your system resources (mainly RAM memory and CPU) and your Cricket Wireless internet connection bandwidth.

If you are on a laptop, you can use the task manager to see your CPU and RAM utilisation.

On other devices you could try restarting the device which should hopefully shutdown all apps that may have been running in the background.

Re-run the Cricket Wireless speed checker on the PC and your phone to see how the speedtest results compare between the 2 devices.

Hopefully the will provide you with some information to work with in terms of whether the problem lies with your device or the Cricket Wireless internet connection.

• What exactly does the Cricket Wireless download and upload speed actually mean?
• 5 Ways to Speed Up Your Cricket Wireless Internet Speed
• DNS hack to speed up internet browsing on your Cricket Wireless internet connection

Is the Wi-Fi network connection the problem?

The cause of the issue may be your Wifi connection and not the Cricket Wireless broadband internet connection.

You can eliminate the Wi-Fi network network being the cause of the issue by connecting your PC directly to the Cricket Wireless internet modem or router using an ethernet cable and run the Cricket Wireless speedtest again.

If speed is better when you are connected using an ethernet cable then this proves that the problem may be with the Wifi network.

Other things to investigate are:

• Are the WiFi channels you’re using for your wireless network (SSID) overlapping with the neighbors?
• Is the Wireless frequency congested? You should consider switching to 5Ghz?
• Is the Wi-Fi network signal from the modem or router obstructed?
• Does the performance improve when you are stood directly infront of the Cricket Wireless Wifi modem/router?

Number of devices connected to your internal network

All devices that are connected to your internal network or Wifi is utilizing the same Cricket Wireless internet connection.

If you have several devices on the web, streaming video, streaming music, downloading or uploading files, video conferencing, etc, this may have an impact on the speed of your Cricket Wireless internet connection because the bandwidth is being split between all the devices.

Do you know how many devices are connected to your Cricket Wireless internet connection? Don’t forget about all the smart home gadgets, security cameras, doorbell cameras, Alexa/Google hub or other similar devices that may be constantly connected.

Who is connected to my Wifi network?

• Have you checked that your Wi-Fi network password has not been compromised?
• Do you have an unsecured Guest Wifi network?

Nearby Neighbors could be on your Wi-Fii network and using up all the Cricket Wireless internet bandwidth downloading, uploading, streaming or running peer-to-peer file sharing over your Cricket Wireless internet connection. Worse still, they could be carrying out unlawful activities.

There are 2 apps that you may use to scan your Wi-Fi network to check who is connected:

• MS Windows users can use Wireless network watcher
• Apple MAC users can use whoFi (who is on my Wifi)

Both apps will scan your Wi-Fi network and show you a list of the connected devices.

As an alternative, you can log into your Cricket Wireless wireless router to see who is connected to your Wi-Fi network.

Check out this guide on how to use these Apps

Wifi signal strength

If the device is not picking up a strong signal it will affect on the throughput, speed and internet performance regardless of how fast the Cricket Wireless internet connection is.

Conditions that may affect the wireless signal are;

• Walls, doors or floors between the device and the Cricket Wireless broadband internet modem or router
• Electrical appliances such as baby monitors and microwaves
• Overlapping wireless signal from your neighbours
• Long distance between the device and your Cricket Wireless broadband internet modem or router.

Do I need a wireless network signal booster for my Cricket Wireless broadband internet?

If you find that you have Wifi black spot in your property, a wireless signal extender also know as a wireless booster is the fix to increase your signal strength across the home.

The Wi-Fi network booster simply picks up your existing Wifi signal as it is becoming weak and then re-transmits the wireless signal at a more stronger rate to boost its reach.

Locate the wireless network booster/extender where the Wifi network signal from the Cricket Wireless internet router or model is beginning to become weak. Approximately where your Wifi network signal drops below two bars. You can use your phone to determine where this is.

Health of your End device

Viruses and malware may slow down your device and consequently your performance on your device. Viruses or malware could be working quietly and concealed in the background download and uploading information and thus slowing the performance of your whole internal network down.

When is the last time you ran a full Virus and Malware check on the device?

When was the last time your Cricket Wireless broadband modem or router was restarted?

In the same way as other Internet Service Providers, Cricket Wireless’s broadband infrastructure is continually refreshed to support new features and changes in technology. Similarly, the internet routers or modem at your property will also occasionally need an update to support changes in the Cricket Wireless internet infrastructure.

The update could be in the form of a software update or an upgrade of the physical Cricket Wireless modem/router hardware to a the newest version.

You can carry out the software update by logging in to the Cricket Wireless modem/router. If you cannot do this or are unsure doing this, contact Cricket Wireless and they will be able to either do this for you or talk you through it.

The type and age of the device

The latest computers, phones and other internet-enabled devices will be generally faster than older devices due to developments in networking technology and protocols.

Are you seeing the same problems or newer devices?

Is the problem external to your home?

This is probably the most common reasons for Cricket Wireless internet faults. There are miles of cabling involved to deliver the Cricket Wireless broadband internet connection to your property.

The issue could be with the physical cabling that comes into your property and goes into the modem or router in your property.

You should get in contact with Cricket Wireless who will be able to run the relevant connection tests to see if there’s a problem on the Cricket Wireless internet line.