Query Speedtest results

Using the thinkbroadband speedtester, I consistently get DS / US results between 494/378 kbps and 120/120 kbps. Using the BT Best Effort test, I get 7616/448 with IP profile 6500 kbps.
I have also tried a number of alternative speedtesters, and they all give much higher figures - e.g. http://www.speedtest.bbmax.co.uk/ 4524/229 kbps.
A 10MB download from http://fuller.zen.co.uk/test/ seemed to download around 2,800 kbps.
Can anyone suggest why the thinkbroadband test gives such poor results compared with the others<

Who's your ISP?

Those BT test figures you give are the line connection speed.

The actual download speed (throughput?) is on the line below the profile. Your download speed cannot be greater than approximately 95% of profile.

Have you tried the TBB test using port 80?

Bob: Demon dialup >> Freeserve dialup >> BT Broadband >> Prodigynet >> Newnet >> O2 Standard.
Purple Cloud for domain, email and web space.

Edited by RobertoS (Thu 02-Jul-09 13:56:46)

ISP is virgin.net

Thanks for the reply RobertoS

Actual IP throughput achieved during the BT test was - 5987
kbps

When I tick the Port 80 box, the thinkbroadband test will not run.

Can't help then sorry.

The port 80 option can give much higher figures if the ISP is using traffic management on other ports, as 80 doesn't normally get throttled. (Standard browsing port). I think most testers use 80.

You haven't fallen foul of Virgin throttling though have you? It's possible.

Bob: Demon dialup >> Freeserve dialup >> BT Broadband >> Prodigynet >> Newnet >> O2 Standard.
Purple Cloud for domain, email and web space.

Thanks RobertoS - that is the issue I am struggling with. I believe my speeds are slow, sometimes very slow. I have a simple connection to the main BT point, and have been arguing with virign. They say that the BT throughput tests prove I have a fast connection. Presumably any undeclared virgin throttling would show on the BT throughput test and other testers like BroadbandMax.

I have relied for some time on the thinkbroadband test to technically judge my speed. They used to (e.g.last March) give results between 1800 and 200 kbps. However since March they have been consistently between 100 and 490 kbps on the thinkbroadband tester.

I have, however, suddenly lost confidence in the current thinkbroadband results, since other testers seem to give gonsiderably better figures.

Hi

I had the same problem when I was with dreaded T. On a PC running XP OS regularly I found that TB speedtest was about half the speed that I got off of Speedtest .net or the achieved throughput that I had from BT speedtest. I never resolved the problem . However now on another PC using Vista All speedtests match reasonably closely. I would sugest that you use something like netmeter to actually monitor the actual throughput whilst doing the tests.
you will find it below
http://www.metal-machine.de/readerror/

Regards Jeff

Edited by jeffbb (Thu 02-Jul-09 18:59:14)

A lot depends on the routing, i.e. the tester is giving a true reflection, but the route between us and virgin may be congested, or their traffic management has our traffic lumped in with P2P which can be throttled.

Many reasons for the figures

Virgin may prioritise the BT speedtest, a tracert to www.speedtester.bt.com will be useful

Andrew Ferguson, andrew@thinkbroadband.com
www.thinkbroadband.com - formerly known as ADSLguide.org.uk

Many thanks for the extra replies.

This time it looks as if virgin are right. I have decided to move to checking the streaming capability on http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/diagnostics, and check files on http://www.thinkbroadband.com/download/.

My speeds look OK at the moment, and I will use these tools when next I suspect a fall in performance.