Broadband speeds...who to trust?!

guzzbuzz

Hi, i have a BT infinity 2 line installed at my house.

I sometimes do a speed test just to check i am getting a decent speed and i always use https://www.speedtest.net to check my speeds. Usually i get 50mbps+ on my PC which is wired to the BT homehub5

Wifi is abit hit and miss and i get different speeds throughout the house.

Today i am getting speeds of 14mbps on my wired PC, so i got in touch with BT to say that this speed is far too low. They told me to check my speed on here:

http://www.speedtest.btwholesale.com/

On that test i am getting speeds of 52.55mbps...

So who do i trust and which one is accurate?! Because that is a huge difference in speed and obviously one is wrong....

bingo_bango

The problem you face is that different servers will have different demands at different times of the day.

I tend to run Speedtest on at least 3 servers and take an average of those as the actual speed. I also try to test at roughly the same time in the evening as previous tests.

Since I game a lot, I tend to pick far flung servers to check ping times. These don't always have the greatest reliability in terms of server speeds, which is why I pick several servers to test.

If I'm still unsure after that, I'll then compare with the BT test and if both are showing low speeds, then I know there is a problem.

flashg67

Since changing to fibre, for some reason, I've been getting odd and varied results on speedtest.net and find that the BT wholesale one gives consistent results, whenever I test - but who knows which is correct!

How about trying a 3rd test website - may confuse things even more though...

guzzbuzz

flashg67 wrote: »

Since changing to fibre, for some reason, I've been getting odd and varied results on speedtest.net and find that the BT wholesale one gives consistent results, whenever I test - but who knows which is correct!

How about trying a 3rd test website - may confuse things even more though...

Yea i am finding this also

Do you know any other testing websites which are accurate/trustworthy?

BT are saying their website is accurate but obviously they are going to say that...and since its BT i'm not sure if i should trust them!

Strider590

ISPs afford more bandwidth to those testing sites, because they know people use them to check their connection speeds before thinking about making a complaint, so really you can't trust any of them.

The thing is ISPs also throttle bandwidth at peak times to certain types of connection, like TV/movie and on-demand streaming services that don't belong to that ISP.

Then on top of that, your connection speed becomes irrelevant if one of the hundreds of server you pass through, does not have the bandwidth to match.

JJ_Egan

Its always been the case with Speednet from day one variable speeds posted .Speednet settings may give you a more local server .

BT test is i believe a direct test as opposed to some server somewhere .

guzzbuzz

Strider590 wrote: »

ISPs afford more bandwidth to those testing sites, because they know people use them to check their connection speeds before thinking about making a complaint, so really you can't trust any of them.

The thing is ISPs also throttle bandwidth at peak times to certain types of connection, like TV/movie and on-demand streaming services that don't belong to that ISP.

Then on top of that, your connection speed becomes irrelevant if one of the hundreds of server you pass through, does not have the bandwidth to match.

Thanks

I know they do throttle in the evening but "normally" in the day time, like now, the speeds are normally the fastest and then again after 1am...

guzzbuzz

JJ_Egan wrote: »

Its always been the case with Speednet from day one variable speeds posted .Speednet settings may give you a more local server .

BT test is i believe a direct test as opposed to some server somewhere .

Thanks

Speedtest.net is posting low results today, all day...going by what you said maybe its just their site then and im actually getting the 50+mbps that the BT website is saying

agrinnall

I never trusted the BT speedtesters when I had my broadband with them, so I tend to use the one on Thinkbroadband.

bingo_bango

Just tried 3 separate sets of tests.

Speedtest.net giving me between 33.8Mb & 54Mb (dependent on server - closest 40 miles away, furthest ~1K miles). Out of 5 tests, 4 were over 50Mb, so I'll ignore the low one.

Broadbandspeedchecker gives me 53.78Mb

Broadband.co.uk gives me 53.79Mb

I think the answer is somewhere just over 50Mb, which is what I'm supposed to be getting with Virgin.

forgotmyname

As post number 2 mentions. The speedtest site maybe overloaded or having issues themselves.

To get an accurate speed i download 5 files from 5 different websites. You get the combined speeds and have a better idea.

Its unlikely that all 5 will be busy at exactly the same time.