How to determine broadband speeds?

geek84

Hi Folks

As some of you may be aware, this morning in Breakfast News, they were discussing about broadband speeds, and the fact that consumers don't usually get the speed which is advertised.

I am with Virgin Media, who are supposed to be one of the faster ones, but my internet connection still seems to be slow.

How can I determine the speed that I am on?

I don't remember the speed that they advertised at the time that I joined Virgin, but if the speed seems to be slow, can I complain to Virgin?

Thanks in advance.

kwikbreaks

Probably the most reliable speedtest is the speedtest.net London server - http://namesco.speedtest.net but none are 100% accurate. The only real way to test your speed is to download 2 or three large files from a server you are confident can easily support a faster download than your line and add up the operating system reported speeds or alternately what a program such as Networx is reporting.

If you don't even know what speed you have bought then how do you know you aren't getting it? The package you are paying for will be on your VM bill and your modem config file specifies the maximum you can get. If you are using WiFi then that is more likely to be the problem than VM although there are always some areas with congestion at any given time. They do get fixed but it can take a while.

===

Just a thought - are you really on VM (cable) or is it Virgin National ADSL which most certainly aren't one of the fastest...

GaryS

Like kwikbreaks has already said, none are 100% accurate.

I have just carried out a test at namesco (London) and would be over the moon if the result was true - see below.

lucylucky

"I don't remember the speed that they advertised at the time that I joined Virgin, but if the speed seems to be slow, can I complain to Virgin?"

seems slow is not a reason for a complaint.

You need to know what you are paying for and whether you are being supplied with that.

If not then you may have grounds for some complaint

aerostar

To get a best speed check, boot your computer into safemode WITH networking, use ethernet cable, wireless will not work as the safemode will not load the drivers.

Then do your speed test.

Using full windows mode, Fire walls, anti virus progs etc will slow down your speeds. Avasts Webwatch I have found on one of the speed tests gives half the speed when selected on.

To see speed tests in your area do a speedtest with http://top10.com/broadband/speedtest/

and then look at the street stats.

or go here direct http://top10.com/broadband/speedtest/streetstats/#home_London_download_0_all_all_0_1 and put your postcode in.

John_Gray

The ThinkBroadband tester is usually regarded as being one of the most reliable. However, it does need the Java runtime environment to be loaded.

Like GaryS I have also had highly amusing results with Speedtest.net - the best being an indicated 54 Mbps download on my 10 Mbps cable line!

kwikbreaks

GaryS wrote: »

Like kwikbreaks has already said, none are 100% accurate.

I have just carried out a test at namesco (London) and would be over the moon if the result was true - see below.

Are you using Kasperspky AV?

kwikbreaks

John_Gray wrote: »

The ThinkBroadband tester is usually regarded as being one of the most reliable. However, it does need the Java runtime environment to be loaded.

Like GaryS I have also had highly amusing results with Speedtest.net - the best being an indicated 54 Mbps download on my 10 Mbps cable line!

If you are on cable then are you using the VM AV which is based on Kaspersky?

Kaspersky is well known for screwing up speedtests - I think it probably buffers the download, scans it , then releases the buffered data to the application.

JJ_Egan

One test on its own is not much use do a few at varying times of the day .

jje

GaryS

I am using Kaspersky Internet suite, so I disabled it and ran another test.



Its a lot closer to my 8 meg service, but this was done wirelessly.

I personally think that the router stats ar more accurate.

Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]:1,261 / 8,188

penrhyn

The definitive connection speed is easily determines by logging in to your router and obtaining its line statistics.

This shows you what the physical link between you and the exchange is doing.

The data transfer speeds you get will always be lower than this.

They look like this:-