Apparatus for and method of providing and measuring data throughput to and from a packet data network

A system, comprising:

• a data communications network, the data communications network providing access to a remote terminal connected to the data communications network;
• a test server connected to the data communications network and accessible by the remote terminal over the data communications network, the test server including multiple sets of input parameters, each set optimized for testing a particular speed of communications service of a plurality of speed classes of communications service available via the data communications network, and a test program including executable code configured to transmit upstream test messages to the test server, receive downstream test messages from the test server, calculate an upstream data rate based on the time required to transmit the upstream test messages, calculate a downstream data rate based on the time required to receive the downstream test messages, and display the upstream data rate and downstream data rate;
• wherein the test server is configured to receive a request from the remote terminal to perform a test, the request including an indication of one of the plurality of speed classes of communications service, transmit said test program and a set of input parameters from the multiple sets of input parameters corresponding to the indicated one of the plurality of speed classes of communications service to the remote terminal, receive the upstream test messages from the remote terminal, and transmit the downstream test messages to the remote terminal.