Broadband speed & quality.

We are on 3mb. The internet has been slow for the last week but still shows around 3mb. Today for 15 minutes both computers were back to normal ie internet changing fast, you tube working no delay, then it went back slow again. Still showing 3mb. The fault is definitely the providers end. I would like to know why if it always shows around 3 mb do we get differences in actual usage. I need to know so I can stop being fobbed off by the provider. Thanks for any help.

What is showing the 3 Mbps?

Some speed tests will test in a way that gets around congestion, ours at http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest.html does two different download test types, one which is more prone to congestion, and the other more like what others do.

Thank you for your reply. I did use your one & it showed lower than the one they said, in fact a lot lower, but they insist on using there one. So lets say I use there one & it shows around 3mb, if there is congestion it could still show around 3mb but the effect on my computer will be to slow it down. That's really what I want to know.

What speed test do they want you to use? And got a copy of the results from ours, interpreting the graphs is an important thing, beyond the average and burst figures.

It is possible to get perfect speeds to a speed test inside your ISP, but get slower speeds to the Internet.