by Dan Moren
macOS Monterey’s new network quality tool
Developer Dan Petrov has a quick write up of the new command line network quality tool included in macOS Monterey:
It seems that Apple has quietly added a new tool in macOS Monterey for measuring your device’s Internet connectivity quality. You can simply call the executable
networkQuality, which executes the following tests:
- Upload/download capacity (your Tx/Rx bandwidth essentially)
- Upload/download flows, this seems to be the number of test packets used for the responsiveness tests
- Upload/download responsiveness measured in Roundtrips Per Minute (RPM), which according to Apple, is the number of sequential round-trips, or transactions, a network can do in one minute under normal working conditions
As Petrov points out, this is pretty similar to speed tests available from Fast.com or Speedtest.net, but it is useful to have access to it on the command line—plus there are some advantages to the fact that the Monterey tool by default tests upload and download simultaneously, as well as providing you with a qualitative assessment of your connection. Another handy tool for your kit.