Internet download speeds?

Boomyal

Supreme Mariner
Joined
Aug 16, 2003
Messages
12,072
What does it all mean? Within a few minutes period I ran 5 different internet speed tests. all from different websites.

I got download speed ranging from 4.01 mb/s to 11.56 mb/s and everywhere in between. Are there test sites that are more accurate than others? I am not sure what speed Comcast cable claims I should get.

They claim if I step up to their 'Premium Bundle' that they will double my speed. I wanted to get a base line before I did that so I would know if their promise held true.
 

korygrandy

Senior Chief Petty Officer
Joined
Apr 14, 2010
Messages
698
Re: Internet download speeds?

What does it all mean? Within a few minutes period I ran 5 different internet speed tests. all from different websites.

I got download speed ranging from 4.01 mb/s to 11.56 mb/s and everywhere in between. Are there test sites that are more accurate than others? I am not sure what speed Comcast cable claims I should get.

They claim if I step up to their 'Premium Bundle' that they will double my speed. I wanted to get a base line before I did that so I would know if their promise held true.

They got me with this sales-tactic. The end result was me calling them back to explain how there sales guys are shooting there customer service guys in the foot, and therefore creating excess inifficiencies.

Long story short, they said they would "double" my speeds, so i ran the speedtests and was getting 24mb/s (close to the 26mb/s Comcast claims is max speed for my tier) at the time before I committed.

Well needless to say, my bill doubled and my internet download speed did not increase so I had them undo everything they did the month before...my bill was a mess as well as you can suspect.


I always use speedtest.net and pick the location closest to me. Lots of things can cause variance (other traffic on the network, like wife watching netflix on her laptop when you run the speedtest)
 

Boomyal

Supreme Mariner
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Aug 16, 2003
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Re: Internet download speeds?

I looked up speedtest.net. It is not one of the test sites that I tried. It looks like you have to sign up to use it. Seems they all want you to do a free scan of your system before you run the tests. Is this a gimmick they use to try to sell you something?
 

Boomyal

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Joined
Aug 16, 2003
Messages
12,072
Re: Internet download speeds?

I usually use http://myspeed.visualware.com/index.php or http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/

Even those can vary depending on time of day, and city your testing to. The visualware site supplies more information than just speed so I usually test there.

I just tried the VisualWare site. It showed 8.65 mb/s download, 3.24 mb/s upload with a consistency of 99%.

I was also rooting around the Comcast site and they had a test speed page as well. They showed 8.35 mb/s DL, 3.55 mb/s UL with a 17 ms Ping test.

Both of these websites has servers that were close to me.
 

dingbat

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Joined
Nov 20, 2001
Messages
16,153
Re: Internet download speeds?

Think of Internet traffic as a pipe. Just because they install twice as big a pipe from your house to the street, doesn't mean you can move twice as much data. The data is routed via various size pipes to get from one place to another and a smaller pipe anywhere between you and the speed test server will reduce your speed according. In times of heavy use, too much stuff in the pipe will slow your data transfer rates as well.
 

superbenk

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Re: Internet download speeds?

Also note that Comcast shapes the speed of your downloads such that you get very fast speeds for a short period of time & then it drops down for longer downloads. I think they called this SpeedBoost or some such thing. For small web pages & photos, etc. it does make the experience much faster, but it quickly degrades when you do more involved things.

Also cable internet services are susceptible to the number of people on your leg of the cable doing things on the Internet. Since you and a bunch of your neighbors share the same piece of cable, you share Internet bandwidth. If Joe down the street are busy with big, bandwidth intensive things, your bandwidth will suffer. Verizon FiOS doesn't have this problem as every house has a dedicated fiber back to the central office so you're not affected (directly) by your neighbors (you can still be affected by heavy congestion on their core network, but that is both far more unlikely & much less likely to be noticeable).

There's a lot of other factors involved too such as how far you are from the central office & how many devices you have to hop through on your way back. Each "hop" can be a congestion point that adds lag & slowness to your connection.
 

dolluper

Captain
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Jul 19, 2004
Messages
3,904
Re: Internet download speeds?

Lots of traffic slow speeds ...little traffic sailing... just like being on a highway in your car
 

jlinder

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Re: Internet download speeds?

Also note that Comcast shapes the speed of your downloads such that you get very fast speeds for a short period of time & then it drops down for longer downloads. I think they called this SpeedBoost or some such thing. For small web pages & photos, etc. it does make the experience much faster, but it quickly degrades when you do more involved things.

There are a couple of things to note. You will find many ISPs do the SpeedBoost which helps for we pages which are small, but when you try to download something bigger you are much slower.

But here is where they trick you. When you go to the speed test sites they do not slow you down after the first boost period. They give you full speed for the whole test, so you think you have one speed but you really don't.

Another factor is distance. You get much higher speed the closer you are to the other end. To test try the speed test sites that allow you to select the location of the other end. You might get high speed with a local server, but go around the world ans see what happens. It has to do with latency, speed of light, and buffers on your computer (long explanation ). Example, even with the fastest of data connections you are limited to about 8Mb/s if you go across the country.(~2500 miles or so)

You also have to deal with the host bandwidth. There are diminishing returns once you get to 15-20Mb/s or so.

Good luck.
 

bruceb58

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30,548
Re: Internet download speeds?

But here is where they trick you. When you go to the speed test sites they do not slow you down after the first boost period. They give you full speed for the whole test, so you think you have one speed but you really don't.
Agreed. The ISPs can throttle your data rate and increase it for known test sites. Best test is to FTP a known file size and time it yourself.
 

jlinder

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Jul 5, 2004
Messages
1,086
Re: Internet download speeds?

Agreed. The ISPs can throttle your data rate and increase it for known test sites. Best test is to FTP a known file size and time it yourself.

Exactly. But unfortunately most people don't have access to a fast FTP site they can use to test with.
 

korygrandy

Senior Chief Petty Officer
Joined
Apr 14, 2010
Messages
698
Re: Internet download speeds?

There are a couple of things to note. You will find many ISPs do the SpeedBoost which helps for we pages which are small, but when you try to download something bigger you are much slower.

But here is where they trick you. When you go to the speed test sites they do not slow you down after the first boost period. They give you full speed for the whole test, so you think you have one speed but you really don't.

Another factor is distance. You get much higher speed the closer you are to the other end. To test try the speed test sites that allow you to select the location of the other end. You might get high speed with a local server, but go around the world ans see what happens. It has to do with latency, speed of light, and buffers on your computer (long explanation ). Example, even with the fastest of data connections you are limited to about 8Mb/s if you go across the country.(~2500 miles or so)

You also have to deal with the host bandwidth. There are diminishing returns once you get to 15-20Mb/s or so.

Good luck.

Spot on.
 

tpenfield

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Staff member
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Jul 18, 2011
Messages
18,090
Re: Internet download speeds?

Just keep in mind that the Internet is 'shared' network capacity, not dedicated to any specific user or circuit. So, the demand and resulting throughput varies instantaneously. That is why when you run a speed test it jumps all over the place.

Typically the spec's you get from the ISP (like Comcast) are going to be your maximum speed, but it is not going to be your typical speed.

As long as it is fast enough for what you are doing, do you really care beyond that?
 

Outsider

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Apr 24, 2007
Messages
1,022
Re: Internet download speeds?

Just ran speedtest.net, no sign in, no fuss, took 15 sec. You do have to register if you want to play with their bells and whistles ... ;)
 
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