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[Astral]

I find that the various speedtesters vary quite widely, although relatively consistently, in their results. Speedtest.net and BBmax(Namesco) give very similar results (I wonder if they both use the same "engine", being as their "rev-counter" screen interface are similar looking) but Plusnet & BT speedtester generally give more pessimistic results.

Is there a speedtester that can be considered a benchmark device, that gives a true throughput figure?

[Pwiggler]

i always find the bbmax and speedtester.net rate my connection at around 3 - 4 mb but the bt speedtester always reports 5.5 - 6 meg ..... so i'm stickin to the bt one 

[Astral]

T'other way round for me. 6-7meg on BBmax & speedtest.net and not usually more that 6meg on BT.

[roseway]

Each one gives a true figure, in that it tells you the actual download speed measured on that server at that time, using that method. There's no overall true figure, because speed varies all the time, depending on the state of the server,  the network conditions at the time, the type and size of file(s) being downloaded, and the protocol being used for the download (and no doubt other factors too). I suppose that the cleanest real-world measurement you can get is to upload a large file to your own webspace at your ISP, then time several downloads of that file (clearing your browser cache each time).

In reality, speedtests are no more than a rough guide, and definitely shouldn't be taken to be accurate, or even representative.

[Astral]

I mostly agree with what you say, Eric, but in the middle of the night when respectable people, like your good self, are fast asleep and only maniacs like myself & Kitz (I've just recieved a P45 by email!) are online, some testers consistently show much higher throughputs than others despite there being little contention at that time.

If there is no benchmark tester, how can ISP's make any claims about speed. I reckon the "up to" of rate adaptive connections is a godsend to them from a legal POV.

[kitz]

Good explanation there prof

I tend to stick with the BBMax one - for me it seems pretty accurate if I test it against real time download speeds I can get from downloading larger files.

The ag one is sometimes a bit quirky, most of the time its correctish but it is always a tad slower than BBMax.

Your right about the BBMax and speedtest.net being the same.

btw as regards to the PN speedtester - which one are you using - if its the "old one" then PN have acknowledged for years that its not correct.  The file size is too small to correctly measure the higher speeds.
Plusnet have a new one at http://www.mybroadbandspeed.co.uk/

Looks familiar doesnt it


----

>> I've just recieved a P45 by email!)

 

[Astral]

I was still using the old PN tester.

I have to say I like the Ookla type  testers the best. You can see if the test is a reasonable sample from the behaviour of the needle; if it goes up nice and smoothly, I regard that as a good test; if the needle is flicking about I tend to ignore the result.

Does anyone else find the BT tester to be "slow"? Does the latest tester still isolate you from contention at your ISP, like the older ones did?

[kitz]

Ive always found the BTw speedtester a tad slower than the likes of AG/BBMax etc but not really noticably slower.

>> Does the latest tester still isolate you from contention at your ISP, like the older ones did

No it doesnt.  Once youre logged into your ISP realm, then traffic is l2tp tunnelled from your home to the ISP central pipe and all traffic goes via your ISP centrals.  My "discussion" with the guy in charge of the BTw speedtesters that I had several months ago stated that removal of the old style tester had removed a valuable testing tool for many users.

However, if you get a low enough speed on the performance tester it will "set up" a login so that you can still access the old style tester on the speedtest domain.

The obvious exception to this though is if your ISP rather than using Central Pipes uses the BTw CentralPlus product (ie BT the ISP).  In this case there is no tunnelling - hence you can see each hop and you were "supposed" to be able to directly access the speedtester.

However, thursday night I noticed some very interesting observations - I was actually connected using a login which was using the CentralPlus product rather than ISP centrals and I was getting quite a few problems and slow-downs.  I was beginning to think that I was seeing bad exchange contention and was averaging between 1-2 Mbps when I can normally get pretty much fullwack.  I couldnt get anything much above 1500 kbps - yet when I tried a Btw performance test I got 7Mbps.  Hmmm me thinks whats going on here? 

I switched logins and connected via PlusNet and immediately I got 7Mbps,  back to BT :- 2Mbps,  to Plusnet again :- 7Mbps,  BT again :-2Mbs - and back to PlusNet 7Mbps.  Guess which connection Im using right now?

You can see the actual results in the thread the other night where you asked about contention.

BTr certainly seem to be doing something a bit strange inbetween the RAS and before you hit the Collosus network right now.  I have a few more results stashed away with regards to some routing strangeness, but I need to do a bit more testing before I draw too many conclusions.

[paul49]

As kitz knows I have been having trouble with my internet speed,(don't show of again kitz the speed if fine now,(4.5meg)
I did find this site ok to check your speed
http://www.dslzoneuk.net/checker.php

click on speed test in left hand row

[cwight]

I think that by far and away the best speedtest I have found is this on:

http://www.broadbandspeedtest.net/index.asp

You have to download it and if you want to record your figures you have to register it, but the free version is still worth using.

[Astral]

I've got a version of Dan Elwell's on my pooter. Very thorough, but I find the speedtests fail quite frequently. The results are quite pessimistic too, whether they are more accurate I couldn't say.

[kitz]

A lot of it depends on how the speedtester calculates overheads.
Dan Elwells always underperforms for me - Ive seen plenty of others from all ISPs say the same.

For eg right now these are are the results of some tests Ive just taken..
Whilst taking them I had DUMeter running and on every test (aside from dan elwells) DUM Meter recorded throughput at 7.39/7.40 including TCP overheads.

Code: [Select]


7078     715     BBmax
7053     716     Speedtest.net
6916.34 Kbps     Adslguide
6943 kbps        BT Performance tester.
4850             DanElwells



[Astral]

That backs up what I have found, Kitz, which is prolly why I gave up on Dan Elwell; too depressing. I you were a conspiracy theorist, you could conclude that Ookla are being paid by the ISP's to big up their results!