Is speedtest.net fabricating my bandwidth speeds?

Discussion in 'Network questions and troubleshooting' started by Dare365, Aug 1, 2010.

  1. Dare365

    Dare365 Active Member

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    I'm an Optimum Online Boost user and I've been looking at speedtest.net on a daily basis for the past week now, and I consistently get these results.

    [​IMG]

    The thing that is interesting about these results is that I can't seem to replicate them on ANY other speed test site.

    http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/
    [​IMG]

    http://www.bandwidthplace.com/
    [​IMG]

    http://reviews.cnet.com/internet-speed-test/
    [​IMG]

    http://testinternetspeed.org/
    [​IMG]

    Another reason I am skeptical is that when I was first reporting slow bandwidth speeds(2 mb/s down, 5 mb/s up when I pay for 30 down, 15 up) they sent a technician over who claimed it was the modem. After replacing the modem, he insisted that we use speedtest.net to test the bandwidth.

    Am I just being paranoid, or do I actually have something to be concerned about here?
     
    Last edited: Aug 1, 2010
  2. hallryu

    hallryu Don Altobello

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    Just compared Speedtest.net against four other providers and got nearly exactly the same results from them all.
     
  3. Zer0K3wL

    Zer0K3wL Banned

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    get a networking gadget ;)

    not all nodes are fast on speedtest.net also.
    every node is mostly just for advertising anyway.
     
  4. PhatKat

    PhatKat Banned

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    Given how open-source PC's are, I bet you have a software conflict.
     

  5. Dare365

    Dare365 Active Member

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    My skepticism lies with Optimum Online technicians only paying attention to results from speedtest.net, which also happens to give 300% better results than any other speed test site. I have seen the broadband speed thread, and all of your results seem fine and justifiable, but I can't help but feel a bit paranoid towards Optimum Online. Boost is a service I pay $10 extra for and I would hope that my $10 isn't simply going towards good results on speedtest.net.



    I'm kind of a networking nub, what exactly is a networking gadget and are there any sites that you guys find more reliable for speed tests? I always felt that the speakeasy site was the most reliable.

    In what sense? I've connected directly to my Modem, so I know its not the router, and I've also used my netbook which I don't typically take online, but doesn't have any anti-virus or firewall, in fact, the only software my netbook has on it is Open Office, I use it purely for school.
     
    Last edited: Aug 1, 2010
  6. PhatKat

    PhatKat Banned

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    Who knows, I kinda made that up. Just guessing. It may be your ISP, some kind of sillyness on their end. Maybe call 'em and ask?
     
    Last edited: Aug 2, 2010
  7. soddit112

    soddit112 Master Guru

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    try running the tests again, but monitoring your network speeds in something like Task Manager, to see if it is flat-out lying.

    i think some ISPs might give special status to speedtest.net traffic, since so many people use it to judge the quality of their lines. i wonder if running the test through a proxy server would give different results?
     
  8. angershark

    angershark Master Guru

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  9. Dare365

    Dare365 Active Member

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    Just tried it today, results were somewhat the same.

    :::.. Download Stats ..:::
    Download Connection is:: 8666 Kbps about 8.7 Mbps (tested with 51195 kB)
    Download Speed is:: 1058 kB/s
    Tested From:: http://testmy.net/ (Main)
    Test Time:: 2010-08-02 20:59:24 GMT
    Bottom Line:: 151X faster than 56K 1MB Download in 0.97 sec
    Tested from a 51195 kB file and took 48.393 seconds to complete
    Download Diagnosis:: May need help : You are only running at 78% of your hosts average (optonline.net)
    D-Validation Link:: http://testmy.net/stats/id-9NTVC2Q3A
    User Agent:: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.8) Gecko/20100722 Firefox/3.6.8 [!]
     
    Last edited: Aug 2, 2010
  10. Dare365

    Dare365 Active Member

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    Hmm, it looks like its not lying. The graph only rises to 4%-8% when I use any other speed test, connecting to the closest New York connection, but when I go to speedtest.net it jumps to 30%-35%

    [​IMG]

    Could you recommend any proxies, I never really use them. =X
     

  11. bradbb2005

    bradbb2005 Master Guru

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    Did you get the same result on other servers? try the montreal server it has always been reliable for me.

    [​IMG]

    My ISP test site speedtest.charter.com says 17.6MBD, 2MBU server is like less than a mile down the road.
     
    Last edited: Aug 5, 2010
  12. avivoni

    avivoni Ancient Guru

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    but what speed u get when downloading stuff? try find a fast server to download something.
     
  13. sykozis

    sykozis Ancient Guru

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    Speedtest.net is the same as Speakeasy.net. Same testing method. If you get completely different results from the 2 sites, your ISP is doing something questionable. Bandwidthplace.com, I'm rather surprised you got the results you did from. Last time I used the site, it rated my connection at 42k....yet I have a 15mb connection, as reflected by every other site.
     
  14. must_kill_ati

    must_kill_ati Maha Guru

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    Is it possible that the connection to that site's servers is just that much better?

    Are you much closer geographically?

    Is there a difference in the method being used by the site that your computer/network/isp just works better with?

    Personally, I measure my bandwidth cap by downloading from Microsoft.
     
  15. Shadowdane

    Shadowdane Maha Guru

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    It looks like you also have Speedboost on your Cable Modem. That basically doubles your download speed for the first 25-50MB of a file download to give the impression your connection is faster.

    Speedtest doesn't use a very large file to test the download speed, so it always showing your "Speedboost" speed. Not your actual sustained download speed.

    There is a program I have at home that will test your connection... it will show the "burst" speed and the sustained download speeds. I'll edit this post later and add the link to the website.
     

  16. sykozis

    sykozis Ancient Guru

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    I love seeing just how far "SpeedBoost" pushes the connection. I'm on a 15/2 connection....my download usually rates between 24mbps and 28mbps. Speedtest.net, Speakeasy.net and several other sites use the Ookla source for determining download sped.

    [​IMG]
     

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