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It is completely understandable that Netflix cares about the user experience of its popular and constantly growing media streaming service, but the global streaming provider obviously can’t do much if your Internet speeds are simply too low. With that in mind, the company has launched a new Internet speed testing tool earlier this week and is hosting it at fast.com which it has acquired at some point this April. Netflix says the main point of this tool is to provide its customers with a “greater insight and control of their Internet service,” which it does by testing how fast your real-time connection to the Internet actually is.
Fast.com tests both mobile and broadband connections regardless of your location, is completely ad-free, and features a relatively clean and simple design so that you can use it without being particularly tech-savvy. Furthermore, it seems like the tool is here to stay as Netflix had not only acquired the aforementioned domain some years ago, but is also currently attempting to trademark the Fast logo at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The tool itself was developed by Netflix and, as the company says, its results shouldn’t vary too greatly in comparison to other similar tools available online.
Netflix stated that the main goal of Fast.com is to provide its users with a quick way of checking whether potential streaming issues they are experiencing at any given moment in time have anything to do with the download speeds they are getting and stresses the fact that this testing tool is different than the Netflix ISP speed index as it only records speeds of individual connections and doesn’t keep track of average download speeds of Netflix streams. Naturally, you can use the tool to test your speed regardless of your reasons to do so and you don’t have to be a Netflix subscriber to do it as the website doesn’t require any type of registration. Speaking of Internet speeds and Netflix, the US streaming company recently admitted to throttling mobile video streams on Verizon and AT&T networks in order to protect its customers from exceeding their data caps.