It always takes 12.3µs to transmit a 1500-byte packet on a GigE link. It is actually possible to derive bandwidth estimates from ping-like measurements alone. I think this should go to superuser, not stackoverflow. If you want to use that to a server on the internet, you need to lower the packet size to something like 1464 (for MTU 1492), drop the -f option and lower the count so it won't take too long to finish. So in average it takes 0.219 ms to send 1500 bytes and receive 1500 bytes, that's 24 kb. Just randomly, I use 83,333 packets in this test (about 1 gigabit). My MTU is 1500, so I use packet size 1472. I have a gigabit ethernet LAN and I want to measure speed between my computer and a host in server room. You can use it too for your internet connection if you have a symmetric link to the internet (i.e.
I think it's as accurate as other means of measuring bandwidth (e.g. I used ping to calculate bandwidth in local network.
