Local network speed test for Android

*** THIS CONTENT IS ALREADY OBSOLETED

*** For the details of the newer version read this post: https://pzoleeblogen.wordpress.com/2013/11/26/wifi-speed-test-for-android-how-to/

A few weeks ago, I just wanted to test the speed of my local network between my Android based mobile and my computer due to slow file transfer problem.
Unfortunately, I was not able to find any useful LAN speed test application, however there were a lot of Internet speed test applications (but they can’t test the speed of the local network).

This problem inspired me to write an easy LAN speed test application. You can find it on the Android Market: Local WiFi Speed Test

You can test the speed of your WiFi/LAN between your mobile devices, or between a mobile device and your computer. Also because my original problem was caused by slowness of a Samba share, I added a possibility to test Samba speed between your mobile and a computer.

How it works

First of all, the application always displays the current SSID of the connected WiFi network, the current signal strength level (in dBm) and the current link level, so you can use it any time to check these values without starting the test.

Here is a video about my application:

Speed test between Android based devices

• Install the above application to your mobile devices.
• Select Server mode on one of them and click on Start: it will display a progress bar and wait for an incoming connection
• Select Client mode on the other device, add the hostname and port displayed by the server and click on Start. You can follow the speed changes on the speedometer. The progress bar displays the current position of the transferred data.
• You can stop the test any time. If the status becomes “failed” it means some network issue happened.

Settings:

• On Settings/Target settings you can set the default IP address/host name and the port number. They are loaded when the program starts.
• On Settings/Transfer settings you can set the transferred data size (1, 10, 100 MB or limitless) and the message block size.
• On Settings, you can switch between megabyte/kilobyte and megabit/kilobit

Speed test between Android based device and your computer

Samba share test

• Select SMB client on your mobile, and add the samba share path to host field in the next form: myhost/shared-folder, or username:password@myhost/shared-folder
• Click on Start: you can follow the same results as in the first case.

Classic speed test

For this test, you may need to install an external program to your computer. This program will simulate the server.

• If you are running Linux, you can use netcat command on that way: nc -l(p) PORT > /dev/null
• If you are running Windows or you don’t want to use the netcat command, you can download my tcpserver program written in python. You can download it from here: https://bitbucket.org/pzolee/tcpserver/downloads/tcpserver.py
  • After downloading, you can run it with the next command: python tcpserver.py -o nul PORT (to start it you need an installed Python framework: python.org). I didn’t want to offer a compiled .exe program, because perhaps you wouldn’t trust in it.
• Select Client mode on your mobile, give the hostname/IP address of your computer and the PORT.
• Click on Start and check the results.

Stability/Walking test

• Go to Settings/Transfer settings and select “limitless”.
• Now you can choose one from the above test types and run the test until you stop it.
• Because there is no limit, the test will run forever, and you can check if your network is stable during a longer period, or just walk in your house or garden and discover the speed changes. If there is any network issues the test will hang and the status will change to “failed”.

Finally, here are a few pictures about the program: