Tom’s Tech Tip: How Fast is Your Legal Nurse Consulting Broadband Connection?

Broadband is essential for your legal nurse consultant business and fast download speeds will get those documents from your attorney-client’s Dropbox account quickly and easily. Fast upload speeds are also essential for any Certified Legal Nurse Consultant returning work product to an attorney-client. Then there’s that ability to do research for your legal nurse consulting jobs – all of which goes faster with a stable, robust broadband connection.

You probably get handfuls of promotional material in your daily snail mail for this broadband service, that broadband service, all of which include offers to bundle your TV, Internet and phone services. Perhaps you’ve already converted to U-verse^®, XFINITY^® or DirectTV^® for your Internet needs. No matter which service you pick, they all share one thing in common and that’s the promise of higher, faster and better speed.

But the promises and actual delivery are two separate issues. Some providers deliver consistent speeds near what they’ve promised, while others deliver varying to disappointing speeds depending upon a variety of factors. I recommend checking your Internet speed at least once a week by doing a simple speed test. To accomplish this, I use the SpeakEasy Speed Test . It’s easy to use – you simply select the city closest to you from their list and the test will run itself. Unlike many other speed testing sites, the advertisements on the site don’t masquerade as test features. You will need to have Adobe^® Flash^® installed on your legal nurse consulting business’s computer to run the test though.

If you want to try a non-Flash-based test you can try Open Speed Test  –  it’s an HTML5-based test and will give comparable results. The bonus here is that if you have an entirely wireless household you can run this test on your smartphone, tablet, Xbox^® or PlayStation^®.

Before you start running these tests, keep a couple of factors in mind – first, wireless connections will often run more slowly than a hard-wired connection (i.e., your phone, tablet or laptop will give you different results than your desktop). Speeds will vary depending upon time of day, how many other users are logged on at your legal nurse consultant office or home, so try your tests at different times of the day. Also keep in mind that your fastest speed is that delivered to your hard-wired router by the provider. Those speeds may decrease dramatically over your Wi-Fi connection – both up and down.

Once you start testing, keep a log or record of the results. If the results are consistently below what you were promised by your Internet provider, get that provider on the phone and ask them to troubleshoot. If your home is completely wireless, you may need to upgrade your Wi-Fi connection to the latest and greatest that your computers, etc., can connect to.

Broadband is one of the biggest benefits to your legal nurse consulting business for many reasons. Make sure yours is delivering what you were promised. After all, you’re paying for it.

Keep on Techin’,

Tom

P.S. Comment and share what broadband provider you use and what you love about it.