The Need for Speed »
So I saw how Jeremy tested his cellular connection at the DSLReports speedtest site, and I figured I would do the same. No, not test my cellular connection, but test my standard cable connection. I think Time Warner advertises it as 3Mbps, but I'm not certain. It's always just been "fast enough".
I tried each of the three test sites, and found that I pretty regularly get about 350Kbps upload speed.
The download speed, though, varied wildly, and was very dependent on the site selection. At Speakeasy, for instance, I regularly received reports of over 4Mbps downloading! Meanwhile, at Megapath, I received numbers ranging from 468Kbps to 766Kbps. Naturally, I also tried the Linkline site, and it gave me absolutely no confidence in any of the tests, by providing results squarely in the middle - at 2500Mbps. End result? I have no idea of my download speed. Anyone know of a reliable speed test?
Comments (2)
You will get widely varying results depending on where the test server is located and when you test.
Try the one provided by Stanford. I find it quite consistent, varying only with the congestion of the web. (or real network problems).
Not only a speed tester, but can help diagnose problems/causes of slowdowns.
I've used it to prove to my ISP that massive speed problems were their fault, & forced them to fix 'em instead of just continuing to blame 'the internet'.
Paul
Posted by Light and Dark on February 27, 2005 10:51 PM
That one is interesting, thanks for the link. It returned a 3.80Mbps down and 407.77Kbps up - actually closer to the Speakeasy results than anything else. At least according to the sites I was on yesterday, the three tests were all run from California, and I would assume Stanford's server is in California as well. So not sure what the difference is. Perhaps a link somewhere between here and there.
Posted by Chad Everett on March 2, 2005 8:12 PM