Can anyone explain this side-by-side comparison?

We live in the country, so don't have access to the higher speed broadband services. For years I've had a line from the business supplier Claranet. Despite being quoted at 2Mb, typical results on the speed test are 0.9Mb download and 0.2 upload. I have a second line - going to the same exchange - which I have just enabled for O2 broadband as they promised me 3Mb or better(!) It's now running, and on this site's speed test, it comes back with 4.4Mb download and 0.9 upload. Sounds like a great improvement doesn't it?

But here's the thing: I have two identical PCs on my desk, one connected via Claranet and the other via O2, so I can do a real side-by-side comparison. They are both talking to similar Wi-Fi routers in the room next door.

And, in every singly case - despite what the speed test says - real life web pages load faster with the notionally slower connection to Claranet. Same story for e-mails with large attachments.

Confused!

1. Do the same tests using ethernet, wireless can have issues and create its own problems

2. What are the line stats for both lines, i.e. attenuation, noise margins and connection speeds from routers. The O2 line might be being pushed too far and getting lots of errors.

3. Alternatively O2 as a massed market product their DNS or web proxy may be busy, thus Claranet performs better. Speedtests generally do little to test performance of DNS lookups

Adding to what Andrew says, if you have two wifi routers operating they could very well be interfering with each other, and possibly one could swamp the other.

I suggest you download InSSIDer and run it on both the computers, to see if they clash wrt channels. Both should show the same signals, but the strengths could also be dependent on the wireless cards in the computers as well as fractional positioning changes.

Thanks for your comments and suggestions. I will try another round of tests without the WIFI factor and come back. Rgds. Iain Boyd.

I too sometimes have noticed that o2 have sluggish DNS servers. How this manifests is that browsing might feel sluggish when you browse a site, but once it's going on a download or similar it flies along.

I'd agree with the others, connect a cat-5 cable between your computer and the router & disable your wifi. The o2 router should have shipped with a yellow cat5 cable about a metre in length.

Also, try and collect the connection statistics - robertos' website will guide you through that if you should require.

All I do re line stats though is give a pointer to the Kitz page.