Broadband speeds...who to trust?!

guzzbuzz

bingo_bango wrote: »

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.

Thanks, i just tried the same 3 sites as you:

Broadband.co.uk: 17.39 mbps download, 13.49 upload, ping 38ms

broadbandspeedchecker: download 13.03mbps, upload 11.24, ping 56 ms

speedtest.net: download 20.24 mbps, upload 14.17, ping 16ms

BUT

BTspeedtest.wholesale: download 51.13 mbps, upload 11.57, ping 37.88


Surely something is wrong here?! 3 independant websites all saying my download speed is below 21 mbps and then the BT speed test is telling me i am getting above 51 mbps?!

This seems very fishy to me...

guzzbuzz

forgotmyname wrote: »

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.

Thanks

Perhaps this is my next text i should run?

Is there any safe files/websites you can recommend that i downlaod from to try this out please?

Also how would i monitor the speed once the download starts?

JJ_Egan

(Surely something is wrong here?! 3 independant websites all saying my download speed is below 21 mbps and then the BT speed test is telling me i am getting above 51 mbps )

But they are not independent are they .

The usual big test used to be download a big file of windows or office from Microsoft and read the speed but even that fluctuates .Not something i bother with these days just use the BT check and or
http://testmy.net/

Muut

Sounds like your connection to BT is good, but their general quality of internet service may not be up to scratch.

Could be that whatever router deals with your 'segment' (not sure how BT do it, with Virgin it's by post-code) is overloaded, so your line will always check out (and probably is) fine, but your real-world results are poor.

I've previously got ISPs to take this kind of problem seriously by saving speedtest.net / pingtest.net results over the span of a few weeks, to different servers at different times, then emailing them the lot, as irrefutable evidence that there is a real problem, but ymmv.

I'd certainly bring up the disparity between their results and external results and see how they comment, perhaps before starting to record results to show them the full picture.

Good luck

RumRat

BT, Speedtest.net and Think broadband speed tests all give me the same result within a couple of Mb....61Mbs slowest 63Mbs fastest.
I find THIS the most accurate and it shows the fluctuations in the results. (No need to put your post code in, the test will still run)

mac.d

You could try downloading a test file from thinkbroadband.com (http://www.thinkbroadband.com/download/) and check to see how fast it downloads.

I tend to use speedtest.net or thinkbroadband.com/speedtest.html, and don't use the BT site, but sometimes find the download test file option the most reliable. Also, remember not to minimize the browser window to look at anything else on your PC while running any of those tests, as it can throw off the results and give you a far slower speed.

The problem you have is that BT will only accept the results of their speedtest. So if its saying you are getting 50MB.... agree with Muut though, it's worth taking screenshots of your results over a period of time as proof. I'd choose thinkbroadband for that and log in so it saves your results so you can compare them.