25 April 2008 9 Comments

How to show Wireless Network Connection Speed in OS X

It took me a while to find out how to do this on our iMac, so I thought I would blog it for future reference. If you want to find out what speed your wireless network is connected at on a Mac, you can do this with the “Network Utility”.

  1. Go to Finder
  2. Press CMD + SHIFT + U to open the Utilities Folder (or navigate there through Applications)
  3. Open Network Utility
  4. From the info tab, select the network you are interested in.
  5. The link speed will be shown in the interface information window.

The link connection speed is highlighted

9 Responses to “How to show Wireless Network Connection Speed in OS X”

  1. Albert Dandl 5 June 2008 at 5:57 am #

    nice hint – it is so obvious that I did not find it myself :-)

    Thanks

  2. Theo Jones 9 January 2009 at 9:55 pm #

    Ditto, thanks top result on google :)

  3. steve g 11 February 2009 at 8:31 pm #

    perfect – thanks. First result in google still ! :)

  4. Alan O 8 April 2009 at 1:36 am #

    Excellent hint. Thanks

  5. GuidoH 17 August 2009 at 12:01 pm #

    Thanks! Good Google position. ;-)

  6. Jtepper 20 September 2009 at 12:57 pm #

    Nice one… always wanted to know. Easy find once I searched.

  7. StewartG 9 October 2009 at 10:41 am #

    Thanks – knew there was going to be a way. Slightly embarrassed I couldn’t find this without a google!

  8. Paul Howland 24 December 2009 at 11:13 am #

    Nice tip – but the reported figure appears to be the theoretical connection speed in use, not the actual speed achieved. e.g. I am using an 802.11g router that has a theoretical maximum speed of 54mbps, and the network utility shows 54mbps. I don’t believe this for one moment, as I am some distance from the router. All this is telling me is that I am connected using 802.11g rather than b or n.

  9. Bill 22 February 2010 at 6:50 am #

    Hi Paul,

    You’re incorrect. It’s showing your current data rate that you are connected at. Try going further away, you’ll see it step down to other 11g rates.

    If you’re on 11n, on 40mhz wide 5ghz channels with a short-guard interval of 400ns, you’ll see a 300 Mbit/sec connection when your signal is solid. As you get further away, you’ll see it step down to other rates, and eventually will switch bands to 2.4ghz.

    Anyway, you’re incorrect, you should do more testing!


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