Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[mywifeshusband]

Can anyone please tell me if the Think-Broadband speed tester which I have used for several years with my old 1Mbps Fixed Broadband service is accurate for the BT Infinity FTCC that I'm now on. I ask because there is a wide discrepancy between it and the official BT Speed tester; particularly with a wireless connection.

BT Infinity configured download speed was 35 Mbps 6 months ago but has dropped back to about 30 now and on average I've been actually getting about 5 Mbps less than this in actual download speed as measured by the BT Speed tester.  With a 'wired' Ethernet connection the think-broadband test comes out about another 5 Mbps slower but the main issue is the difference between the 'wired' and the 'wireless' as follows.

I have just run another double test within the last 10 minutes and 26Mbps BT Tester (wireless connection) corresponds to 9Mbps (yes nine Mbps) (wireless connection) think-broadband speed tester. This is typical of the results I'm getting using the BT Home Hub 3 and  an 'n' technology Belkin dongle creating the  wireless connection which constantly reports itself as "excellent".
I'm stumped for an explanation. 'Wired' the think-broadband test is consistently lower than the BT Test but within the same ball park, but 'wireless' there seems to be no comparability at all.

Any ideas why - and which one is right?

[Bald_Eagle1]

Hi mywifeshusband,

Don't know if this is of any use:-

I have been using speedtest.net recently to monitor my currently very poor FTTC connection (wired desktop PC).



& occasionally mybroadbandspeed.co.uk



Just tried the TBB speed tester. It seems a little more pessimistic:-



I can't try the wireless laptop tonight, but it is ALWAYS around 50% of the speeds reported via my desktop PC.

Now & then I try the test download files from here:-
http://www.btopenworld.com/speedtest

Again, via the laptop, the time taken to download the 15Mb file is ALWAYS twice as long as when downloaded to the desktop PC.

I put that down to the old & slow wireless adapter in the laptop.

Paul.

[.Griff.]

TBB's speedtest has never given me an accurate result.

For example -





But -

[mywifeshusband]

Thanks Folks - What you say is very helpful, but how do you tests compare with the official BT  http://speedtester.bt.com/ ?

[Bald_Eagle1]

Thanks Folks - What you say is very helpful, but how do you tests compare with the official BT  http://speedtester.bt.com/ ?

For me, the BT speedtester is always a tiny bit more pessimistic than speedtest.net (usually no more than 0.5Mb difference).

I don't usually get affected by contention, regardless of the time of day either.
There musn't be that many users connected to the same FTTC cabinet DSLAM as me.


Paul.

[mywifeshusband]

Thanks Bald-Eagle for your observations. I have just done another wireless speed test results as follows:-
(Download speeds only, with all three test completed within 5 minutes of noon.)
Bt speed tester 26,459 kbps on a configured speed of 28,788 kbps
Speedtest.net 18,59 kbps
Think-broadband 8,658 kbps.

I know I have nothing to complain about with figures like these but I do wish I could find out which on is right.

[.Griff.]

Which server/location did you use on Speedtest.net? I find some servers/locations give much more accurate results than other.

London, Milton Keynes and Maidenhead all give the most reliable results in my experience.

[mywifeshusband]

Hello Griff
I used Maidenhead, it being the closest to where I live.
Thanks

[Bald_Eagle1]

I usually just let speedtest.net choose the server.
Apparently it determines the "best" one to use.

I live near Manchester, but that doesn't usually provide the best results.
Maidenhead, & a few others dahn sarf tend to give better/more consistent results for me.

For curiosity, what results would your wired connection provide if the 3 same tests were run one after the other today (allowing speedtest.net to choose the "best" server)?

Assuming it is actually working correctly, I would have thought your 'n' dongle would have provided reasonably consistent & fairly high results from the various speed testers, on a pro-rata basis.

Maybe some sort of incompatibility between the HH3 & the dongle itself?

I will try the TTB speed test wirelessly when I get home tonight, to see if it also shows such a huge difference for my connection.

Paul.

[mywifeshusband]

Sorry but I don't have an Ethernet lead long enough to do a wired connection to the PC from the router. However my netbook on a short lead records as follows:-
BT speed tester 26,561 kbps on a configured connection of 28,788kbps
speedtest.net 20.25 mbps
Think-broadband 18.3 mbps
These readings were taken within 5 minutes of 14:00 hrs and are consistent with others taken over the last 5 months or so.

The netbook only has a 'b' technology connection and turns in a wireless connection download speed using think-broadband of only 5 to 6 Mbps, significantly slower than the PC which as a 'n' dongle.

I have also run further tests from other BB speed testing websites on both machines and they all seem to average out at about 20Mbps wirelessly with not a great deal of difference between the wired connection to the PC

Having gone through this over and over again in my mind I still can't see a logical reason for think- broadband returning such a very low wireless reading for the two computers against all the competition, particularly whilst the wired connection is 'almost' comparable.

[Bald_Eagle1]

Right,

I have just arrived home & ran the wireless tests:-






Ignore the time differences. They were all run one after the other.

There is something strange going on there, as these are the best wireless results I have ever achieved, even from when a wired connection gave me 33Mb downloads. I only achieved 16Mb or so wirelessly back then.
Today, they are more or less the same as my wired connection.

The results do however show that TBB gives a lower download speed for a wireless connection for some reason though.

The 15Mb test download from here:- http://www.btopenworld.com/speedtest took 9 seconds wirelessly, & a few minutes ago took 6 seconds wired.

I don't know if the above has helped, or just added further confusion

EDIT: Wired (about 1 hour later):-







Paul.

[renluop]

@ Paul. FWIW I'm curious; what did you open the BTO tester with?

[Bald_Eagle1]

@ renluop,

Nothing really.

It seems to be full of pure garbage, & just used as a constant for testing download speeds.

I couldn't even copy & paste any of it as an example of what it contains.

This link explains, or doesn't explain what it is:- http://www.tech-forums.net/pc/f9/btopenworld-com-speedtest-10319/


Paul.

[Bald_Eagle1]

Apologies,

The test download file is 15MB in size, not 15Mb.

Paul.