# Stability Test

Measure for 5 minutes whether your connection is truly stable. Reveals dropouts and periodic slowdowns that a short test misses.

#### Recent samples

### What we measure

A short speed test measures maximum bandwidth, but tells you nothing about how stable your connection is. PulseSpeed pings your line 300 times over 5 minutes and shows every variation live. This reveals micro-dropouts, jitter spikes and temporary slowdowns that cause stuttering video calls or laggy gaming.

- Latency every 2 seconds — see spikes appear instantly

- Jitter trend — how consistent are consecutive packets?

- Packet loss — failed pings are marked red

- Range — difference between your best and worst measurement

## How to read the result

An average ping says little; the spread around it says everything. The thresholds below are the values we apply when assessing a connection.

| Metric | Good | Acceptable | Problem | Why it matters |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Range (best vs worst ping) | under 20 ms | 20 to 60 ms | over 60 ms | The key figure on this page. A wide range means your line changes behaviour markedly under varying conditions. |
| Jitter | under 5 ms | 5 to 15 ms | over 15 ms | Determines whether calls and games feel smooth; more important than average ping. |
| Packet loss | 0 percent | up to 0.5 percent | over 1 percent | Every lost packet is data that must be resent, or in calls is gone for good. |
| Spikes above 2x median | 0 to 2 | 3 to 10 | more than 10 | Isolated outliers are normal; repeated spikes indicate structural congestion or WiFi interference. |

## Frequently asked questions about connection stability

### Why a 5-minute test instead of 20 seconds?

Because the problems people actually experience rarely occur within 20 seconds. Micro-dropouts, a router revisiting its WiFi channel, a neighbour starting to stream, or congestion on the local loop are all events on a timescale of minutes. A short test measures your peak speed; this test measures whether you hold on to it. With 300 measurements at one per second, a single hiccup is clearly distinguishable from a pattern.

### What counts as a good result?

Do not look at average ping but at spread. A line averaging 30 ms that stays between 28 and 34 ms is excellent. A line with the same average that swings between 8 and 190 ms is poor, despite the identical average. As a rule of thumb: a range under 20 ms and jitter under 5 ms with no packet loss is a healthy connection.

### What do isolated spikes in the chart mean?

A single spike is almost always harmless: a background process, a WiFi scan, or a brief queue somewhere along the path. Patterns are what matter. Regular spikes at a fixed interval often point to a device on your own network. Spikes coinciding with housemates' activity point to bufferbloat. Gradual degradation over the test points to congestion or thermal problems in equipment.

### Why does my connection score worse in the evening?

Between roughly 7 and 11 PM most people use the internet at once. On shared infrastructure — more so on cable than on fibre — that can measurably worsen latency and stability. Always measure at several times before drawing conclusions, and specifically keep the evening measurement if you want to support a complaint.

### Can I use the result to complain to my ISP?

Yes, and of all the tests on this site this is the most persuasive, because a single snapshot is easy to dismiss and a series of 300 measurements is not. The condition is that you measure over an ethernet cable: with WiFi your ISP can legitimately argue the problem is inside your home. Export the result and repeat the measurement at different times of day.

### Does this test harm or slow my connection?

No. The test sends one small probe per second and therefore uses a negligible amount of bandwidth — considerably less than an average web page. You can keep working during the test, though for a clean measurement it is better to avoid heavy downloads, unless you specifically want to see what those do to your stability.