How to check server connection hosted at distant location

You might be watching live streaming of videos online on your laptop. But you may not be knowing that the network or server connection that you have do not transfer data in a continuous stream, but in small packets.

Servers or your hosting server

located in a far off place might take more time to load a webpage or to download a content than a server in your region. This is not always true. Server connection depends on multiple factors like connection speed, distance, block size, jitter, packet loss, protocol used, network technology, computer used, buffering in network equipments etc. If you have exactly the same configuration in two different location one nearby and one in another geographical location then the server connection to the nearby server will perform better. This may not be the case if the local or nearby server has a poor configuration.

‘Speed Reduction by Distance‘ is one online calculator which can help you in showing how much speed is reduced because of distance. If you want to know more about the technical details then check out their website. Also, there is a calculator to check this. There is no charge to check this. The results that you get might be a rough figure according to me as it depends on mutiple other factors which are not considered while calculating using this online calculator. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

How to check your broadband data usage

If you are an Airtel user and have broadband or landline connection from Airtel service provider then there is a way to monitor your broadband data usage. For mobile data like 2G, 3G or 4G you can always subscribe for free to get daily alerts. If you are a prepaid customer then you will get your data usage details instantly but for a post paid customer he will only get unbilled amount details which excludes any offer. And for landline or broadband connection there won’t be any alert and it’s hard to monitor broadband data usage.

I have been using Airtel for few years now and have got a monthly limit of 30 GB. It’s important to monitor your usage else you might end up in paying more bill or you might want to monitor data usage for some other reason. There is an app from Airtel which can be downloaded for free from play store and installed on your Android device.

 Once you install this app, all that you need to do is enter your mobile number that was registered with Airtel. It will pull all your details and the other services from Airtel that you have subscribed to like your pre-paid, post-paid, TV, Money, Live etc. You can use this app to make service requests and transactions like Airtel Money and your bill payments. All your services are listed and for landline there will be two things that you need to look into. One is the landline number – details on usage of your landline number and the other is your broadband usage.  As you can see in the image I have used just 0.26 GB of data of the 30 GB limit that I have. The number is low as I’m in a fresh monthly cycle. I usually check this at the end of every month and once in a while just to make sure that I have not crossed the limit.

There might be similar app from other service providers to monitor your broadband data usage. Check out Play store or the website of your internet service provider.