"Which" can your trust them?

"Which" are campaigning to "Fix bad broadband" and have sent me a link to their speed checker to "find out my real speed so that they can build a picture of the problems people actually face across the country.

So I run the test. No advice, such as to reboot my PC, close other web browser tabs, advise if I am using Wifi and make sure that nothing else is using my broadband connection.

I am suspicios of the latency which comes up as 16-20m/s compared with more like 5m/s that this web site records. The recorded up and down speeds of 500+ mbps are credible, but then I find that I can't select my broadband supplier, Gigaclear, from the drop down list to submit the results.

So can Which build up a sensible picture of the status of broadband across the country if they exclude results from one of the fastest, but small, suppliers? I am inclined to think this is not possible.

57ms latency here O_o, they hosted in russia or something?

Also the download and upload speed is not quite right,

Download speed 79mbps
Upload speed 60.2mbps

Worst speedtest site ever?

Note I expect speedtest sites to report TCP throughput, so on my 79987 sync a 79mbit result should be impossible. The upload completely whacked and the test was done direct not over a VPN.

Interestingly they at least allow you to check localised results (take note tbb).

How your neighbours compare with you

Provider Distance (km) Advertised speed (Mbps) Download speed (Mbps)
Virgin Cable
0.2 200.0 89.0
Virgin Cable
0.2 200.0 80.2
Virgin Cable
0.5 200.0 45.1
Virgin Cable
0.6 200.0 9.2
Virgin Cable
0.9 200.0 45.9
Virgin Cable
1.0 200.0 83.6
Vodafone
1.2 1000.0 15.3
Virgin Cable
1.5 200.0 87.1

2nd test results

Response time (latency)
36 ms
Download speed
81.5 Mbps
Upload speed
29.4 Mbps

Looks pretty grim for VM in my area considering the tester seems to over report speed.

Edited by Chrysalis (Thu 06-Apr-17 22:11:02)

In reply to a post by Michael_Chare:

"Which" are campaigning to "Fix bad broadband" and have sent me a link to their speed checker to "find out my real speed so that they can build a picture of the problems people actually face across the country.

So I run the test. No advice, such as to reboot my PC, close other web browser tabs, advise if I am using Wifi and make sure that nothing else is using my broadband connection.

I am suspicios of the latency which comes up as 16-20m/s compared with more like 5m/s that this web site records. The recorded up and down speeds of 500+ mbps are credible, but then I find that I can't select my broadband supplier, Gigaclear, from the drop down list to submit the results.

So can Which build up a sensible picture of the status of broadband across the country if they exclude results from one of the fastest, but small, suppliers? I am inclined to think this is not possible.

in a word unreliable
SS A tracert of the server ip @ server-54-192-129-22.ams50.r.cloudfront.net gives a steady ICMP result of 31-32ms so could be non mainland uk

Edited by tommy45 (Thu 06-Apr-17 22:35:37)

We don't do immediate local results for good reason, but https://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local has the maps and postcode level analysis of the speeds The search is updated monthly and currently maps are generally done on a weekly basis.

The issues with their tester have been raised publicly and we were told their supplier tests and reviews the testers reliability, so whether anything will change is an unknown.

Obviously Which? is a trusted brand and would never want to publish anything that would tarnish its reputation as a trusted public champion, but we will be monitoring any results published. We would have offered a white label solution of our tester and can do custom UI work (as we have done for various sites) if we had been approached. In addition we are often advising media outlets on broadband, and a good many result in no actual coverage for ourselves but do ensure that what is talked about does have a solid base.

82ms here
61.2 down
7 up

I have 55Mbps lol.

My adsl 2+ connection comes up with latency 222ms(!), down 15.8Mbps (about right), upload 2.3Mbps (real speed around 0.7Mbps).
And Pulse8 not an option as my provider.

WORST? I think worse than that ...

It gives my speed in excess of 80Mbps first time and 88.1 Mbps the second with latency well over 70ms. As I am sync'd at 79 I might expect to see 75 ish, but not 80. One of the neighbours, according to their data, gets 99.6 Mbps on a 76 Mbps link! Also the upload is reported at times as being over 10 - well that would be a miracle as mine is capped at 10Mbps.

Then, when I fill in the provider, advertised speed and postcode, it will not let me submit! So, they are excluding good results!

add the per isp and you golden I want to see VM results for my area on the TBB map

The problem with 'Which?' is that the demographics of their survey responders and 'readership' (or should that be sponsorship?) leans heavily towards serial complainers, accountants, Graundiad readers, those who feel they should 'campaign' on behalf of others and 'activists' - whatever they are. i.e. not representative of the 99th percentile of users of whatever their latest bandwagon is rumbling along complaining about. It therefore doesn't surprise me that their broadband campaign (more precisely, marketing push to boost their subscribers and raise their profile into the publics consciousness once again) would be skewed by 'weighted' test results - or inability to loadshare the server requirements dynamically.

Once the other changes we keep saying are coming soon then I'll have more freedom to provide custom filters for this sort of thing, I won't share my to-do list as in the past ideas have appeared elsewhere after mentioning them, i.e. others throw cash and people at things whereas we may be slower but try to do it right