Network “Speed Test” for Mac users

Monday, February 4th, 2013 Chris Witeck, Director Product Marketing

We just recently released to our customers and partner the Open Mobile Client v2.2 for Macintosh. One of the key features we added in this release is a “Speed Test” that helps users understand the quality of the Wi-Fi connection they are connecting to.

This is part of an ongoing trend that we started back in 2012 centered around adding usability features to the Open Mobile clients that do more than just connect users to Wi-Fi, but help them understand how to get the best connection experience possible.

We want users to see iPass as a useful tool when connecting anywhere, not just to iPass hotspots. For example, we’ve added to all of our smartphone clients the ability to track how much data you’ve used through Wi-Fi and 3G/4G connections in order to better manage and choose which type of connection to make.

The Speed Test feature fits into that mold by allowing a Macintosh user to test their current connection and see what the current latency, download and upload speeds of the connection are. This information can help the user determine if their current connection is sufficient for video conferencing or video and audio streaming for example.

This can be incredibly useful for mobile workers. Wi-Fi quality can vary based on a multitude of factors- how far the user is from the hotspot, how many users are using the hotspot, interference from other Wi-Fi enabled devices and many other factors. Providing users with tools to determine if they can do what they want to do with that current connection is just part of the overall iPass strategy to provide both usability and diagnostic tools to users for any type of connection. Look for iPass to continue in this vein of product development for all of our Open Mobile clients in the coming year.

To take advantage of this new feature, the Open Mobile client for Macintosh must be running client version 2.2 or greater as well as having this capability enabled by the Open Mobile administrator.

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Tags: Macintosh, wif