How does the Viasat speed test work?

The Viasat speed checker starts by determining your Viasat connection and then selects a speedtest server nearest to you.

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

The Viasat speed test is powered by Ookla and calculates the ping (latency), download speed & upload speed between your device and the test server.

The time that it takes this packet to go to and return from the server establishes your Viasat internet speed.

How accurate is the Viasat internet speed test?

The Viasat Speedtest is powered by Ookla which one of thee most popular internet connection speed test and provides accurate and consistent testing experience and results.

By automatically choosing a speed test server closest to your location, this eliminates latency & bottlenecks which may skew performance metrics.

Ookla has a worldwide network of over ten thousand speed test servers in over 190 countries.

Source: Ookla reliable speedtests

To improve accuracy, we would recommend that you run the Viasat speed checker from a device directly connected to the Viasat gateway modem or router.

This will help to provide an accurate reflection on the performance of the Viasat broadband connection and assist to rule out the Wifi related problems.

If you are unable to connect your device directly to your Viasat modem or router, ensure that the device that you are performing this test is as near the modem or router as possible. Also run the speed test at least twice and from two different devices to ensure that the fault is not on the device.

What do the speed test results from my Viasat speedtest mean?

What does the Ping metric mean?

Ping is also referred to as latency which in connectivity terms means the time (or delay) it takes for data to traverse from one device to another. In this instance, from your device using the Viasat internet connection to the closest Ookla server.

Ping sends information to another computer (in this case, the Ookla test server) and measures in milliseconds (ms) how long it takes to receive a response.

If the Ookla test server is very far away or the network is busy it will take longer to receive a reply and therefore the ping value will be high.

This Viasat speed tester will automatically choose a speedtest server nearest to your location which will eliminate latency and bottlenecks which can distort speed test results.

A quick ping (low ms value) means a faster Viasat internet connection.

What is a good ping result?

A normal ping rate to a device in the same city should be lower than 20ms. A typical 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 Ookla test server so that you can determine whether your ping result is good.

What is Jitter?

All data (e.g. an email, image, video, voice call, etc) is transmitted across the internet as a series of small packets. These packets typically move at a regular 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 similar to running a tap and then increasing or decreasing the flow rate of the water coming out. When the flow rate becomes irregular (due to the increasing and decreasing), the Jitter value increases – which is not a good thing.

You do not usually notice jitter as networking devices can smooth it out but you will notice jitter during a video and voice calls because the connection will momentarily disconnect or break up.

Viasat Download and Upload speed metrics explained

Find out More:What does the Download and Upload speed metric on my Viasat speed test mean?

Common causes of Viasat slow internet speed

There are a number of possible reasons why your Viasat internet connection is not performing as expected. While we are unable tackle every possible cause, we have listed a number of likely possibilities.

Depending on your Viasat internet connection setup, some of the recommendations may not be relevant in your case. We hope that they may trigger food for thought or get you on the right path to resolve the fault.

Is it the Viasat internet that is slow or is it your device (PC/laptop/phone)?

You need to consider how many applications are concurrently open on your device that may be utilizing your system resources (mainly RAM memory and CPU) and your Viasat broadband internet bandwidth.

If you’re on a computer, you may use the task manager to see the CPU and memory utilization.

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

Run the Viasat speedtest on your PC and your phone to see how the speed test results compare between the two devices.

Hopefully the will provide you with some information to work with in terms of if the issue lies with your device or the Viasat broadband internet connection.

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

Is the Wifi network connection the problem?

The cause of the fault could be the Wi-Fi network connection and not the Viasat internet connection.

You could rule out the Wifi network network being the cause of the problem by connecting your computer directly to the Viasat internet modem or router using a network cable and run the Viasat speed checker again.

If the speed is better when you are connected by an ethernet cable then this suggests that the fault may be with your wireless network.

Other things to verify are:

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

Number of devices connected to your home network

Every device that is connected to your internal network or WiFi is utilising the same Viasat internet connection.

If you have several devices browsing the internet, streaming films, streaming music, downloading or uploading files, video conferencing, etc, this may have an impact on the performance of your Viasat broadband internet connection because the bandwidth has to be shared between devices.

Do you know how many devices are connected to the Viasat internet connection? Don’t forget about all the smart home gadgets, CCTV cameras, door cameras, Alexa/Google hub or other similar devices that are constantly connected.

Who is connected to my Wi-Fi network?

• Have you checked that your Wifi network password has not been compromised?
• Do you have an open Guest wireless network?

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

There are two apps that you may use to scan your wireless network to check who is connected:

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

Both apps will scan your wireless network and display a list of the devices connected.

As an alternative, you can log into your Viasat wireless router to see who is connected to your wireless network.

Check out the guide on how to use both applications

Wireless signal strength

If the device is unable to pick up a strong signal it will have an effect on the throughput, speed and internet performance regardless of how fast the Viasat internet connection is.

Situations that can affect the wireless signal are;

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

Do I need a Wifi network signal booster for my Viasat internet?

If you find that you have wireless blackhole at your house, a Wifi signal extender also know as a wireless booster is the fix to boost the signal strength across your home.

The wireless booster simply picks up the existing Wifi signal just as it is starting to become weak and then re-transmits the Wifi network signal at a more stronger rate to boost its coverage.

Locate the Wifi booster/extender where the Wifi signal from the Viasat internet router or model is beginning to become weak. Approximately where your Wi-Fi network signal drops below two bars. You could use your phone to determine where this is.

Health of your Device

Viruses or malware can slow down your device and your performance on your device. Viruses and malware could be working silently and hidden in the behind the scenes download and uploading information and slowing the performance of your whole internal network down.

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

When’s the last time your Viasat broadband modem or router was restarted?

Just like other Internet Service Providers, Viasat’s broadband infrastructure is continually upgraded to support new features and changes in technology. Similarly, the internet routers or modem at your home will also periodically require an update to support changes in the Viasat internet infrastructure.

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

You can perform the software upgrade by logging in to the Viasat modem/router. If you can’t do this or are not confident doing it, contact Viasat and they will be able to either do this for you or guide you through it.

The type and age of the device

Newer PCs, phones and other internet enabled devices will be generally faster than older devices due to advancements in networking technology and protocols.

Do you experience the same problems or newer devices?

Is the problem external to your property?

This is one of the most likely reasons for Viasat internet faults. There are miles of cables used to bring the Viasat broadband internet connection to your property.

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

You should get in touch with Viasat who should be able to carry out the appropriate connection checks to see if there’s a problem on the Viasat broadband internet connection.