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Speed testers - yet again, groan - thinkbroadband ‘special’

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Weaver:
Buried in the thinkbroadband website there is a page that says

--- Quote ---For those who want to run a test that is more sensitive to provider congestion try this special test version.
--- End quote ---

The words ‘special test version’ form a link.

When I tried this, I found that the upload test result from the normal tester was horrendously inaccurate, under-reporting by 50%. It gave me an upload figure of 0.6 - 0.8 Mbps where’s the truth is around 1.5 Mbps, but when I chose the special test version mysteriously the upload figure was then roughly correct, reporting 1.6 Mbps for IPv4 upload, which I think is exaggerated a little.

So it seems that the special test version whatever that means is the one to go for because the normal one is utterly broken. Don’t know what on earth they are doing when one version of the tester can come out with numbers that are more than double those reported by another version, supposedly measuring the same thing.

renluop:
Curiosity led me to try their use, but I never, hardly unusual, worked out how to use them with IPV4.

kitz:
Doesn't that test just run one thread, as opposed to the usual test which will also use x6.

Single thread tests are quite rare as most speed testers tend to use multi-threaded.   
Single thread speedtests are much better to diagnose congestion issues, whereas you would expect a multi threaded test to show near max throughput even if the SP has some slight congestion.

dee.jay:
I personally just do lots of transfers from actual hosts on the internet.

I have a host I can download 1 or many files at once from. Hence single vs threaded.

I am starting to really detest "speed testers". They are completely synthetic.

d2d4j:
Hi

I believe this has been covered many times previously

I also think most hosting is multithreaded so a single thread test is rare, and whilst it may show congestion it does not mean your connection is slower, due to multithreaded hosting.

Also, to me it is pointless to test to see if you have full bandwidth throughout the internet, your correct bandwidth is shown between your connection to your SP and that does not mean you attain this throughout the Internet due to once your connection leaves your SP networks, the SP has no control over other networks.

So my best advise to measure throughput (not connected speed) is to use the same Speedtest site for comparison to all tests you make, as throughput is fluid and there are many different reasons for speed variations, such as your computer, anywhere between you and the test site and the test site resources etc...

I would advice not to get fixated over throughput speed as it is fluid

Many thanks

John

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