Measuring your internet connection helps you understand the connection quality provided by your ISP’s network. You can then compare this information with your subscriber connection agreement, for example. In addition to this, the application provides you with information on how your internet connection affects the usability of the services that you use and whether the connection is sufficient for your needs.
The download speed is the speed at which e.g. software updates and video are downloaded to your device from the internet. Correspondingly, the upload speed is the speed at which data is sent from your device to the network, e.g. when you upload backups of your photographs. The latency tells you how much time it takes for data to be sent from your device to the network and back again. A high latency can affect online gaming by making the player character react slower to player commands, for example.
Bittimittari.fi is a reliable service provided by a public authority that is unaffiliated with internet service providers. In addition to technical measurement results, the Bittimittari.fi service also provides information on how ideal the measured connection is for your purposes. For fixed connections, the service also offers the possibility of carrying out longer quality surveys, which other services do not offer. For more information, please see the Quality survey section.
The connection speed may vary considerably during a measurement that only lasts a few seconds. The Bittimittari.fi service indicates the average speed achieved during the measurement. Other similar services may have different principles and give results, for example, according to the maximum speed achieved only for a fraction of a second. During measurements, the service contacts the measurement server online. The location of the measurement server also affects the result. The Bittimittari.fi server is located so that in Finland the connection to the server is equally good for the customers of all operators.
The mobile device uses for its functions the network available it determines to have the best connection. Thus, the device may show a 5G connection, meaning the device is within a 5G network area, but the Bittimittari.fi measurement happens in a 4G network.
5G connections utilise parts of the 4G network, due to which the interpretation of the network can be difficult. Due to this, the network information shown by the device or another application might not directly indicate what network is used specifically for data transfer at the current moment and what network Bittimittari.fi utilises in its measurement.
To make sure that the service measures the quality of your internet connections as reliably as possible, make sure to install all the latest operating system, browser and other software updates and close any other applications and browser windows that use your internet connection before using the service. This will ensure that the connection being measured is used exclusively by the Bittimittari.fi service. Using the connection for other services or to download updates, for example, during a measurement can skew the results, providing an inaccurate picture of the quality of your internet connection.
Please make note of the type of internet connection that you are measuring. Mobile devices usually connect to a (home) WLAN/WiFi network automatically when they are in range of one. When not, they use the mobile network.
To measure your internet connection, the Bittimittari.fi application will send and receive large amounts of data, which are directly proportional to the speed of the connection being measured. For example, with a connection speed of 100 Mbit/s, the measurement will transfer approximately 100 megabytes. The data transfer can also drain your battery faster than conventional use.
You should note that the measurement results might not be as precise when measuring very fast (> 1 Gbit/s) connections.
You can clear the measurements that you have carried out via the browser interface from your browser history using the ‘Clear history’ button. Your measurement history will usually also be cleared if you clear your browser’s browsing history, cookies and cache.
The measurement results are saved on the local storage space of the browser that you use, which is browser-specific. If you use the Bittimittari.fi service on two different browsers (such as Chrome and Edge), the service will only show you the measurements that you have carried out on the browser that you are currently using.
If you have adjusted font sizes on your device or activated a zoom function, the texts on some pages of the service may end up being cut off. However, the service will still function as normal and provide you with reliable results in spite of this.
The IP address of the device used for the quality survey may change during the survey. This can happen if the device switches from using a wired connection to using a wireless (WLAN/Wi-Fi) connection, for example. Since the quality survey can only be carried out on a fixed connection, the change of IP address will end the quality survey, after which you will need to start over. All the measurements of the quality survey must be carried out on the same fixed connection.
The quality survey may stop if you open another browser window. The survey may also end up stopping prematurely due to connection errors.
Please make sure that the device used for the quality survey will not go into lockdown or power saving mode during the survey. We recommend that you disable the features for the duration of the survey.
Traficom is constantly developing the service and is happy to receive development suggestions and other feedback on it. You can submit them using the feedback form or by calling our telephone service, tel. +358 295 345 610. The telephone service is open Mon-Fri 9:00-15:00.
