Determine Bandwidth and Latency of (User) Internet Connection
lazarus / 38-Networking and Web Programming

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tudi_x · 2017-09-18 08:21

hi All,
cross platform how i could determine the bandwidth and latency of the
internet connection the user is using?
for latency i want to avoid PING as i understood even in TProcess
would need special rights on Unix.

thank you

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Thaddy · 2017-09-18 08:57

Bandwidth is a bit difficult/impossible w/o moving files hence and
forth (that's how speedtest.net and the likes do it, using a browser
cache/temp/flash datastore), but latency is easy to measure with any
protocol:
just time the interval between request and response. Preferably a
couple of times.

Note that if you want to measure bandwidth yourself, be careful not to
measure your own bandwidth:

E,g, I have 100/30 but at work I have 500/500. I'll end up measuring
myself.

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benohb · 2017-09-18 09:22

Users On LAN ?? or Users in same PC

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tudi_x · 2017-09-18 09:35

users on internet using my app.

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benohb · 2017-09-18 14:59

Quoteusers on internet using my app.
Users who using your app in their device ????
please explain

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tudi_x · 2017-09-18 15:33

the application is installed in a desktop computer and connects to a
server in internet to download some files.
i need to indicate to the user of the application if their internet
connection works fine, basically:
a. has internet
b. bandwidth (poor, good, excellent)
c. latency (poor, good, excellent)

for a. i will make a GET to a server to receive some XML
if a. then:
for c. i am calculating how much time it took to get a.
for b. i am trying to find a web service that sends a big XML so can
compute some kind of bandwidth. i do not want to download a file for
this due to different policies on user computers although it looks
contradictory with the application scope

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Noodly · 2017-09-18 18:32

Quote from: tudi_x on September 18, 2017, 05:33:41 pmthe application
is installed in a desktop computer and connects to a server in
internet to download some files.
i need to indicate to the user of the application if their internet
connection works fine, basically:
a. has internet
b. bandwidth (poor, good, excellent)
c. latency (poor, good, excellent)

for a. i will make a GET to a server to receive some XML
if a. then:
for c. i am calculating how much time it took to get a.
for b. i am trying to find a web service that sends a big XML so can
compute some kind of bandwidth. i do not want to download a file for
this due to different policies on user computers although it looks
contradictory with the application scope

If your app itself has sufficient rights when installed, you could try
and incorporate the Synapse library and use it's ping functionality
for a) and c).

For b), relying on a third party server could lead to incorrect
measurements in future if they introduce throttling when busy or
add/remove compression. Of course all this won't matter so much if
your thresholds for poor, good, excellent are spread widely in the
first place.

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Trenatos · 2017-09-18 18:43

Bandwidth would be compared between a preset and current, as in
"You've used 500mb out of 1gb available" type of thing.

Latency is easy, just ping the server you're downloading from and
record the time / 2, or wrap the system ping/trace info and use that.