Broadband - the real speed

jonpym

Anyone checked their real speed (on BT speed checker or other) and had any better results than me. With a 1Mb service I have not recorded a speed greater than 460kb over the last 5 days. A friend who has a 2Mb service tells me he has not had a sped gretaer than 750kb over the last 4 months! Are we being sold a lie on these speeds?

Rex_Mundi

What ISP are you with?

My 2Mb connection has hardly ever ever gone under 1850Kbps (pretty much full speed for my connection).

Your problem may be congestion on your local exchange, or with your ISP.

I just ran another test...........1888Kbps. This is Ok for my connection.

ManAtHome

More to the point - which ISP are you with Rex?

Lorian

Check if there is VP (virtual path) congestion at your local exchange. This could be slowing down your thoughput. You can do this here:

http://usertools.plus.net/exchanges/

mrJ_5

depends what sort of speed you are refering to.... your connection speed of 1MB - which you are getting a 460KB sync rate (which is quite low) - or your download rate... ie. when you download say a file over the internet - for 1MB users, this should be around the 120KB mark - which is correct for this speed

you will always download at one ninth your sync rate ie. 512KB users, 55KB.... 1MB users 120KB, and 240KB for 2MB users

[EDIT: Made my figures technically correct]

Rex_Mundi

ManAtHome wrote:

More to the point - which ISP are you with Rex?

Top quality ISP...................Zen Internet. Never had even 5 minutes downtime with them all the time I've been with them (a long time now). Never had a dropped connection, I've never had any slow downs with my speed, and never needed to contact them once with any problems. I pay more for my connection, but in return I get a first class service.

mrJ_5

albertross wrote:

you are getting your bits and bytes mixed up (which is easily done). B=bytes, b=bits. 8 bits to a byte.

i know technically what i have written is wrong, but everyone knows what i imply... i'm just being lazy by not pressing down shift

wonderfullife_2

Hi
Here's my results, I'm on ADSLMAX uptp 8mbs but router syncs at 6.5mbs, so I'm quite happy with this.

Download Speed 6464kbs
Upload Speed 47kbs

http://www.speedtest.bbmax.co.uk/results.php?t=1153004891&v=235535

jonpym

My ISP is Mistral. According to usertools there are no exchange problems so I'm still wondering. Speed down to 400k today!

the_devil_made_me_do_it

My broadband speed with NTL is showing: 953kbps download speed / 90kbps upload speed.

I'm using 1mb broadband. because I don't understand the above numbers, I wouldn't know if what I was getting was a fair deal or not

Rex_Mundi

jonpym wrote:

My ISP is Mistral. According to usertools there are no exchange problems so I'm still wondering. Speed down to 400k today!

What speedtests are you using? When you say the BT speed checker, do you mean the test that requires you to log off your Mistral connection, and reconnect to broadband using the login speedtest@speedtest_domain and then using the test on this page........speedtester.bt.com (this page wont load on a normal connection)?

If this test is giving you the same low speeds as you've quoted, this would be nothing to do with your ISP. This would indicate either problems with your exchange, problems with your line, or problems with your equipment. Have you tried the test at different times of the day to see if there is any difference (this could help point to or discount congestion on the exchange).

If you get full speeds on the BT test, and slow speeds on a web speedtest (like the one HERE), then this would point to problems on Mistrals network.

Doing these different kinds of test at different times of the day (and making a note of the results) could help narrow down where any possible problems lie.