Which Broadband Speed Test Is Telling The Truth?

c0y0te

I've got a 20mb connection from UPC, or rather I'm supposed to have but I'm not sure if it's actually all there or not.

When I run the speed test at http://www.irishisptest.com/runmyspeed.php I get the following results:

Download speed 14.6mb
Upload speed 1.45mb

When I run the speed test at http://www.speedtest.net/ it tells me:

Download speed 19.4mb
Upload speed 1.39mb

Which one is the more accurate? Which one do I trust when testing whether or not I'm getting the full service from UPC?

Hank Scorpio

erm why dont you just try downloading a file?

iv found speedtest.net more accurate.

c0y0te

nuxxx - download speeds will vary depending on source, contention etc. so what I'm trying to ascertain is how much bandwidth I actually have.

I'm supposed to have 20mb at a contention rate of 17:1

But why do the two speed tests show such differing results?

dunworth1

it depends on where the server is and how fast the connection to server is

PogMoThoin

http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download

Start this download, pick Ireland, HEANet and tell us what speed your getting after a few mins. It will fill your bandwidth

BTW You'll not ever get the full 20Meg as there are overheads in the copper and contention etc. 19meg is great tho

AlmightyCushion

c0y0te wrote: »

nuxxx - download speeds will vary depending on source, contention etc. so what I'm trying to ascertain is how much bandwidth I actually have.

Someone posted up a link to a linux iso from heanet on the upc thread. Downloading that would be a very reliable way to test the speeds you are getting.

Edit: Damn you, pog. You bet me to it.

smellslikeshoes

c0y0te wrote: »

nuxxx - download speeds will vary depending on source, contention etc. so what I'm trying to ascertain is how much bandwidth I actually have.

I'm supposed to have 20mb at a contention rate of 17:1

But why do the two speed tests show such differing results?

I think you have answered your own question there. download speeds will vary depending on source, contention etc. works exactly the same for any of the speedtest sites.

watty

Also for higher speeds (Above 6Mbps?) the speed tests are increasingly in accurate. I can max out either of those from work and they both report a ping x10 higher than I have. In fact my work connection really tests the latency (ping) and speed of the speed testing servers.

They aren't really designed to test 20Mbps connections.

Also are you using shared WiFi? That can be slower even than a 6Mbps connection. Especially if in use by others, even if they are not accessing Internet.

(on my 108Mbps WiFi at home the ping rises on the lan as more people use the home server via WiFi)

guil

how do i do a ping test from ms dos

watty

You mean a Console in Windows?

On Win NT, 2000, XP, Vista
"Start | Run , type cmd "enter"
Or find an MSDOS icon

On Win95, 98, ME
"Start | Run , type command "enter"
Or find an MSDOS icon

TCP/IP networking must be installed and a working gateway IP.

Then at console type

ping www.bbc.co.uk

or

ping www.boards.ie -t

Then press Enter. Try different servers.

(press Ctrl-C to stop, the -t makes it keep testing rather than just 4 attempts.)


You can actually do the same command on real MS-DOS with no windows. But you would need TCP/IP installed, which is very very unusual on a bare MSDOS!

On Linux/UNIX/Solaris the basic command does the windows -t version

Dub_Gunner

i have same question and am with same provider on 20 meg connection and my speeds vary alot more than his

www.speedtest.net my fastest speed result was 19197kb/s
slowest was 8943kb/s

www.irishisptest.com now here the big drop in speed here im only getting at fastest 2.31 Mbps and slowest and normal result is 1.45 Mbps

Eircom speedtest here im getting speedtest Result: 13511kbps

oh and a little note on the speedtest.net site im only getting top speed when i test on london server if i test on dublin server its normaly around 9 or 10 meg

macker7963

"http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download Start this download, pick Ireland, HEANet and tell us what speed your getting after a few mins. It will fill your bandwidth" How do you do this? When I click on it in Firefox it just downloads it.

Sam Vimes

macker7963 wrote: »

"http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download Start this download, pick Ireland, HEANet and tell us what speed your getting after a few mins. It will fill your bandwidth" How do you do this? When I click on it in Firefox it just downloads it.

that's what's supposed to happen :P

when firefox is downloading it, it says how fast it's going (under the progress bar on the right, it has a figure in KB/s). let it go a few minutes so the speed stabilises.

when he says "fill your bandwidth", he means that it will use all of your connection's available speed and tell you how fast it can go

Blazer

Download a rapidshare file.
Rapidshare maxes your connection so this is a better indicator of it.
Eircom was telling me I only had a 5mb connection (on a 7.6mb) , same as isptest and speedtest.
Yet downloading via rapidshare consistently gives approx 740 which is 7.6mb basically.

mneylon

Both tests are on the same network, though they use slightly different technology.

macker7963

Sorry, its just me being stupid. I see where you select Ireland now. My download speed settles down around 440k/s.Do I multiply that by 10 ,as seems to be indicated by Matthew Reilly? When I was on Eircom 3Mb my speeds on the 2 tests were roughly similar. Now I'm on 7Mb my norm on Irish ISP is 3.5M down and 340K up and on Speedtest its 5.1M down and 202K up. Thats a big difference.

PogMoThoin

I prersume thats 440kBps, therefore
(440x8)/1024=3.44Mbit

You can also use google to calculate it: http://letmegooglethatforyou.com/?q=440+kBps+in+Mbps

highdef

My internet is very slow recently....Is this bad?

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\Documents and Settings\>ping www.bbc.co.uk -t

Pinging www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.251.197] with 32 bytes of data:

Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 212.58.251.197:
Packets: Sent = 3, Received = 0, Lost = 3 (100% loss),
Control-C
^C
C:\Documents and Settings\ping www.boards.ie

Pinging www.boards.ie [89.234.66.107] with 32 bytes of data:

Request timed out.
Reply from 89.234.66.107: bytes=32 time=42ms TTL=59
Reply from 89.234.66.107: bytes=32 time=140ms TTL=59
Reply from 89.234.66.107: bytes=32 time=294ms TTL=59

Ping statistics for 89.234.66.107:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 3, Lost = 1 (25% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 42ms, Maximum = 294ms, Average = 158ms

C:\Documents and Settings\>ping www.bbc.co.uk

Pinging www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.251.197] with 32 bytes of data:

Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 212.58.251.197:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),

tiestio

im with 3 modem broadband and the system is pure crap,ive complained so much i think they are sick listening to me,has anybody got complaints about the 3 network,or is it just me?

Sam Vimes

tiestio wrote: »

im with 3 modem broadband and the system is pure crap,ive complained so much i think they are sick listening to me,has anybody got complaints about the 3 network,or is it just me?

Three Mobile Broadband -THE PROBLEMS M-M-MEGATHREAD!

It's just you

lensman

I'm on the 30MB upc package in Dublin at least thats what I was told I was on, I never achieve a real download speed which would indicate a 30Mb connection, when I download the 340MB file below the actual download speed is between 1.6MB & 2.0MB per/sec which equates to at best a 20MB connection,..I did sign up online to the recent speed upgrades & got an email from UPC thanking me for this & informing me that I was now on the 30MB package,..in reality my download speeds are no better than before the alleged upgrade,...I'm reluctant to get involved in a fruitless interaction with UPC about this issue as I know they will attempt to wriggle out of the problem by stating the usual blah blah,...I have worked in the computer / communication industry for 30yrs & I could if needed supply indisputable proof to them but life is too short & they can always fall back on their get out clause "Broadband speeds are the maximum possible speeds only. Actual speeds will vary depending on internet traffic",...so there you have it,...however if someone on a 30MB connection is actually getting real download speeds around 2.6 to 3.00MB per/sec I would be delighted to hear from you.
http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/ubuntu-releases/dapper/ubuntu-6.06.2-server-sparc.iso

Karmafaerie

lensman wrote:

I'm on the 30MB upc package in Dublin at least thats what I was told I was on, I never achieve a real download speed which would indicate a 30Mb connection, when I download the 340MB file below the actual download speed is between 1.6MB & 2.0MB per/sec which equates to at best a 20MB connection,..I did sign up online to the recent speed upgrades & got an email from UPC thanking me for this & informing me that I was now on the 30MB package,..in reality my download speeds are no better than before the alleged upgrade,...I'm reluctant to get involved in a fruitless interaction with UPC about this issue as I know they will attempt to wriggle out of the problem by stating the usual blah blah,...I have worked in the computer / communication industry for 30yrs & I could if needed supply indisputable proof to them but life is too short & they can always fall back on their get out clause "Broadband speeds are the maximum possible speeds only. Actual speeds will vary depending on internet traffic",...so there you have it,...however if someone on a 30MB connection is actually getting real download speeds around 2.6 to 3.00MB per/sec I would be delighted to hear from you.
http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/ubuntu-rele...rver-sparc.iso

Loads of people get their correct speeds.
However you need to give us a hell of a lot more information than that before we can adviseyou on whether you're having a problem or not.

What hardware do you have (cable modem/cable modem & router/wireless modem), how are you connecting to the modem (cable/wireless), if wireless what type of router (G/N/N+), what kind of network card to you have in the computer if it's wireless....etc,etc,etc.

If you are connecting on wirelessly with a G network card, and a G router you will never get the full 30.






AS for the OP's question.
I've found with UPC that I always get attrocious speed results with the ISP test.

however with speedtest.net, speedtest.magnet.ie, and UPC's test for instance, I'm always getting similar speeds.

jor el

2 year old thread... fail.