Before placing order for dedicated server or any hosting package with any webhosting service provider , you should look what network speed you would be getting for your server. There are many ways to test network speed of your webhost. one of popular and widely used method is by pinging your server in MSDOS. You can also tracert it in MSDOS to see how many hops it takes to get from your computer to required server. You may ask your webhost to provide you download speed test.

Following instructions would help you to test network speed of your webhost.
Testing network speed is a measure on how fast can the data be delivered between the visitor and the host’s server. you can use Ping command on your Dos prompt so as to test network speed. You can easily test network speed by pinging the server. you just need to open MS-DOS prompt and fire a simple command: ping serverID, where server ID is either a domain name (e.g. C:\>ping yahoo.com), either an IP (e.g. C:\> ping 128.65.134.89) once you fire ping command you would be getting results similar to these:
Reply from 64.190.235.64: bytes=32 time=432ms TTL=45
Reply from 64.190.235.64: bytes=32 time=180ms TTL=45
Reply from 64.190.235.64: bytes=32 time=377ms TTL=46
Reply from 64.190.235.64: bytes=32 time=216ms TTL=45
Ping statistics for 64.190.235.64:
Packets: Sent=4 Received=4 Lost=0 (0% loss)
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 180ms, Maximum = 432ms, Average = 301 ms
A ping time of under 200ms is very good, 200 to 400ms is average and 400ms and above are poor ping times. Make sure a poor ping times do not always indicate a problem or slow network. If you are pinging servers that are very far away (pinging a server located in USA from a computer located in Australia), then you may get poor ping times then normal even you have a good connection.
The Loss % represents the percentage of packets (sent messages) that were “lost” (did not return within 1 second). High Lost packets are not good but few web hosts disable the Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP), so pings are not responded. Usually webhost do this is to increase security for the server.
Another method for checking network speed you can use is Traceroute : This traces the route between the computer and the server. All information goes from your computer to the server, is passed through a few routers to get its destination. A traceroute will tell you how many routers are involved in between your computer and server and all information about the routers. You can fire this command at MS-DOS prompt as tracert serverID or domain name. C:\WINDOWS>tracert www.mysitespace.com
Download speed test : You can ask your webhosting service provider to provide you with test download file using which you can download at your local end can thus can test network speed of network. You should go with a host who has the capability of sending at least a few hundred kBytes/second but if you are on dial-up connection you’ll not be able to test this yourself. There are chances that webhost may try to fool you by providing you a test file located on a fast, empty server so that you can get best speed so its always suggested to contact some one who is using their services [ current user ] and ask him to post a test file on his account which you can download and can check speed. This download test file should be big enough so that you can see the speed and stability over time, you can think of getting 10-15MB file, also try to test this download file at pick hours when server might be busy. Most important point to be noted is that all results depend on location, ISP etc. you can request few forum members to check what speed they get for your download test file and if you get good response from them, you can surely go with your preferred host.

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