This last updated version, called NetGauge, becomes a new cutting-edge speed test platform. Over the last two years, Ookla, the US-based company that developed the software, and global leader in broadband speed testing, has been working to upgrade it.
Speed tests were focused on low capacity domestic connections (up to 100 Mbps) rather than high capacity ones. However, such a tendency changed over the last years, boosting fiber optic connections, high-speed LAN and wireless, as Wimax, 3G and 4G. It is for this reason that Ookla has developed NetGauge, an evolved high-speed test. Anella Científica has actually a Network Diagnostic Test (NDT) since 2010 which checks connections up to 1 Gbps, providing performance and net configuration tests to all institutions connected to Anella Científica.
NetGauge uses TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) instead of the HTTP protocol used in the previous version. Thus, TCP favors a more accurate data control, as well as it allows realizing tests via proxy servers. NetGauge does not depend on a passive component through a web server. By contrast, it uses a daemon, which is independently set up in the server that receives customer connections and participates in the testing process.
Among its advantages, NetGauge offers independence of the operator that provides internet connection. Its location at the Catalonia Neutral Internet Exchange Point represents another advantage, since it provides low latency. Moreover, NetGauge has a friendly and fast user interface.