Netflix Launches New Site, Fast.com, Enabling Users To Test Their Streaming Speeds

Netflix has released a new service, at Fast.com, which lets users know how fast their Internet download speeds are at any given moment. While comparable sites like Speedtest.net already exist, Fast.com is ad-free just like the Netflix service, writes the company’s VP of content delivery architecture, David Fullagar, “with a streamlined design that is quick and easy to understand.”

Fast.com measures mobile and broadband speeds in megabits per second in any country on earth and is available to non-Netflix subscribers as well, the company said. Netflix suggests that users need 3 mbps to watch content in standard definition, 5 mbps for HD quality, and 25 mbps for its Ultra HD shows.

One reason Netflix launched the service is to help ensure that Internet service providers — upon whom Netflix greatly relies — are delivering the streaming speeds that they promise to consumers. “If results from Fast.com and other speed tests often show less speed than you have paid for,” the company writes, “you can ask your ISP about the results.”

Netflix, whose popularity accounts for huge swaths of Internet usage, has launched several efforts enabling consumers to stack up service providers in the past. For several years, the company has operated an ISP Speed Index, which provides “a measure of prime time Netflix performance on particular ISPs around the globe.” And earlier this month, it launched new mobile tools that aim to help users streaming on their cellular networks to receive good video quality while using less data.