Should I expect faster speeds?

Hello,

I've recently moved over from Virgin Media Fibre M200 to Zen Unlimited 80/20 (FTTC).

The Virgin Media connection was simply awful, with constant drop outs, unstable speeds and tortuous customer "service".

I've had my Zen connection up and running for about two weeks now. It's been far more stable than my Virgin connection, which I'm pleased about.

However, I'm currently only getting at most 73 Mb/s downstream and 16 Mb/s upstream. Sometimes this drops to around 68 Mb/s down and 13 Mb/s up. This is tested using a wired connection from my PC to the Fritz!Box router.

I've waited until now because I was told by the Openreach engineer that the line takes around 10 days to stabilise.

It's strange because when the engineer tested the connection after installing it, he was getting 79.999 Mb/s down and 19.999 Mb/s up on his device.

Upon signing up with Zen, they also guaranteed that my speeds would be at least 78 Mb/s down and 19 Mb/s up.

I'm 118 metres from the exchange (based in East London), and the Openreach engineer installed a brand new line from outside my house to a new Master socket. The router is connected to the Master socket using a 0.5m cable.

Are my speeds the best I can expect, or do I have a legitimate reason to talk to Zen about this? I don't mean to complain when I know so much of the country is struggling with far worse speeds. However, I would like to get what I'm paying for.

One thing I have noticed is that the Openreach engineer didn't do a great job with the cabling. I've seen at least two locations where he stapled right through the cable. I've removed the staples because I was worried about shorting the signal, and the staple has indeed gone through the centre of the cable rather than just the sheathing.

Can this cause a problem?

I've had three occasions when the connection has dropped out completely, however I put this down to the line being tested by the exchange.

I'd appreciate any advice.

The engineer was ...

A. Talking out of his [censored] about the ten day training period.

B. Talking about the sync rate on his tester, whereas you are talking about throughput speeds.


Not too pleased to hear about the stapling ...
.. is there clear dialling tone on the line ?

73Mb/s is about as good as it gets with the maximum sync rate on FTTC. There are protocol overheads that mean you're unlikely to see more than that. Same with 16Mb/s upstream.

The speed drops would also be normal in the evening from most ISPs but are a bit unusual from Zen. Worth keeping an eye on it but I don't know how much traction you'd get trying to raise it as a fault. I've not used Zen but with IDNet it can be worth sending a query about odd behaviour as they will look into it. If the lower speeds were a common occurence I would do that.

However the occasional poor speed test is probably not worth bothering with.

Edited by Andrue (Mon 15-Feb-21 20:29:10)

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

The engineer was ...

A. Talking out of his [censored] about the ten day training period.

B. Talking about the sync rate on his tester, whereas you are talking about throughput speeds.


Not too pleased to hear about the stapling ...
.. is there clear dialling tone on the line ?

Unfortunately I don't have an active telephone line with Zen, just the broadband. They told me that I would need to purchase the telephone activation as an additional package, even though I paid for the installation.

I'm guessing without the line being activated, I wouldn't be able to hear a dialling tone if I plugged a phone into the socket, would I?

The Openreach engineer was rather stroppy when he came to be honest. He tried insisting on installing the Master Socket near the front door. He also told me that the speeds would only be "guaranteed to the socket" so I should keep the router as close to the Master Socket as possible because a large distance between the two would increase the chance of the signal degrading (which appears to be true).

I had to repeatedly ask that he install the Master Socket on the side of my staircase, because that's where I would be placing the router, centrally situated in the house near the ground floor ceiling for maximum coverage. It was only an extra 5 or 6 metres of straight-forward cabling required, which only took about 10 minutes. But there was a surprising amount of huffing and frowning. Maybe he was having a bad day.

However, this did allow me to keep the distance from the router to the Master Socket very short.

Is it worth mentioning the holes in the cable to Zen?

In reply to a post by Andrue:

73Mb/s is about as good as it gets with the maximum sync rate on FTTC. There are protocol overheads that mean you're unlikely to see more than that. Same with 16Mb/s upstream.

The speed drops would also be normal in the evening from most ISPs but are a bit unusual from Zen. Worth keeping an eye on it but I don't know how much traction you'd get trying to raise it as a fault. I've not used Zen but with IDNet it can be worth sending a query about odd behaviour as they will look into it. If the lower speeds were a common occurence I would do that.

However the occasional poor speed test is probably not worth bothering with.

I did some reading around this, and I've seen it mentioned in a few places that throughput speeds are typically 88.2% of sync speeds, so you're probably correct about the 70+ Mb/s being about the best I can expect downstream. Although upstream I should be expecting at least 17 Mb/s, if the theory is valid.

Are these protocol overheads particularly true of FTTC?

With Virgin, I was on their 200/20 plan. And, when it worked, I would always get at least 200 Mb/s downstream (sometimes even 220 Mb/s) and at least 19.5 Mb/s up. That's surprising, given how awful everything else about Virgin was. Honestly, I'm astonished that their "customer support" hasn't been outlawed as a crime against humanity. I break into a cold sweat merely thinking about their on-hold music.

I think you've convinced me to talk to Zen to see what they have to say. Perhaps my concern will be logged and I may be able to reference it if things get worse in the future.

In reply to a post by adrianshepherd:

I did some reading around this, and I've seen it mentioned in a few places that throughput speeds are typically 88.2% of sync speeds, so you're probably correct about the 70+ Mb/s being about the best I can expect downstream. Although upstream I should be expecting at least 17 Mb/s, if the theory is valid.

Upstream might be being impacted by QoS. Some routers hold a bit back so as to avoid it become swamped when uploading large amounts of data. It sounds counter-intuitive but without that if you initiate a large upload your connection can become useless for anything else because you're unable to transmit ACK packets for other activities.

I think you've convinced me to talk to Zen to see what they have to say. Perhaps my concern will be logged and I may be able to reference it if things get worse in the future.

From what I hear about Zen that might be a reasonable cause of action.

Yes, not quite normal. At 118 meters from cabinet you should get the full 80/20 speed test. Now you can wait of-course for the line to stabilize as DLM can sometimes take a while. Make sure you don't power off or reboot your router as that can disrupt the DLM process.

Crosstalk can also be a factor in reduced speeds. However, seeing that you have Virgin Media as well, I'd expect crosstalk to be less of a factor with a chunk of customers still using Virgin Media.

I sync at 80/20 Mbps in my TalkTalk router settings and I also get 80/20 in speed tests. Not absolutely every single time but most of the time I get speed tests of 80 Mbps download and 20 Mbps upload with various speed test sites.

Here's proof. https://i.imgur.com/6XC1WI7.jpg
https://i.speedof.me/201205000112-233
https://i.imgur.com/h01UK8f.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/k8Lmgoh.jpg

https://librespeed.org/results/?id=0vmhvmn Latest speed test just done now with Libre 80Mbps download, 20 Mbps upload.

And btw, I am 320 meters away from cabinet and that's with TalkTalk! I pay only £21.95 a month.

If you are 118 meters away, you should be guaranteed to receive 80 Mbps considering that my copper length is 202 meters longer than yours! In fact there are people here who claim to get 80Mbps with a 450 meter cabinet distance.

What does the Broadband Checker show? https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL/...
I'm pretty certain that if your cabinet is 118 meters away from your property, barring any crosstalk you should get VDSL Range A (Clean) 80 79 20 19 VDSL Range B (Impacted) 80 79 20 19

78Mbps would be the lowest I can expect you to receive. I have been with TalkTalk FTTC last 1 year and my router has always synced at 80/20 along with my speed tests even though my lowest estimates are between 64.8 and 68.2 Mbps in the BT Wholesale checker.

You should complain to Zen! I am assuming that you are paying £34.99 a month and only getting 73/16 Mbps? That's certainly not acceptable.

Seconded, my line is best case 450m long and synced at 79.999 down and 19.999 up, stable for 45 days with a 3.8dB margin.

Same, my TalkTalk router stats show

Downstream Upstream
Actual Rate [Kbps] 79999 19999
Maximum Rate [Kbps] 80904 19999
Noise Margin [dB] 2.80 14.80
Attenuation [dB] 18.00 0.00

I have even lower noise margins, 2.80dB and until recently it was as low as 2.30dB but my connection has always been stable, noise margin slightly bounced without interrupting the connection.

At the very beginning last year it was 6.40dB and 15.40dB but crosstalk did drop it to 2.80dB but I am still syncing at 80/20.

We don't have Virgin Media or Hyperoptic here so crosstalk should affect me more than the original poster.

I can only suspect worse case scenario aluminum telephone line instead of copper. It could also be noise related to the line or a faulty router. OP, should look to see if the orange ring wire is connected to his master socket and look to remove it.

Or maybe give it a few days for DLM to sort itself out. In the very beginning I was also syncing 80/20 but my download was only 65-73Mbps
--->

As you can see from my speed tests, 5-7 days later last year this jumped.


And then finally again it jumped several days later. The connection remained the same but the speed test results seemed to have corrected themselves over time and it has remained that way since.

However, in the case of the OP router stats need to show 79999 19999, there's no reason why it shouldn't with a 118 meter cabinet distance.

Edited by BLaZiNgSPEED (Sat 20-Feb-21 01:59:38)

2.x margins are quite common and almost everyone who has a 3dB sync will see it at some time. I have seen cases with 1.x dB. You modem will sync at at 3dB based on the prevailing conditions and then as things change that will vary up and down slightly. It will stay like that until a resync event occurs which could be down to a large number of error in a short time frame and that is more likely with lower SNRs.

The same happens on ADSL and I have screen shots of where the SNR was actually negative.

Just for contrast, my line is 520m, the attenuation 18.5dB and SNR 6dB. My errors are low and my connection stays up for weeks on end but I've never synced above 46M. Still 3M above the 'handback threshold' though. Just unlucky I guess.

It is just bad luck. It may have tried dropping to 5dB and found instability or maybe it sees a medium length line (at 18dB attenuation) with a fairly low sync for the attenuation and knows it will not be worth trying!. At 16.5dB over 450m I have sync speeds up at mid 70s but know of one specific interferer that takes 6-8 Mbps.

Yes, it is true that 3dB will sometimes drop to 2.x margins.

In my case when I was on EO Line 3dB was impossible to maintain stable sync. The internet connection wouldn't even last for half a day before dropping out. With 6dB it will also drop out within 2-4 days regardless of what ISP or router quality I buy.

In my case only a manual ISP cap of 9dB on ADSL was my connection stable and even then 9dB would drop to 3dB almost every day in the mornings due to some interference that would occur for years. After 10 minutes to 2 hours it recovers back to 9dB. But because the SNR is high enough the drop didn't go to 0dB.

I personally have observed in my router stats over the years with a 6dB or 3dB default SNR under ADSL formerly EO Line the SNR would never be stable and would very frequently drop to 1dB even witnessed 0.8dB and that gave me clues why my connection was dropping out. Like it would disconnect 5-6 times a day with a 3dB profile. No Openreach engineer or Sky engineer was able to fix this issue.

FTTC finally came and that is when miracles happened. Now the same 3dB SNR no longer poses problems and from my observation last 12 months since having FTTC. Noise margins are very stable. Extremely rarely have I observed even minor fluctuations and that's an indicator of a stable line thanks to shorter copper lengths I believe.

I think the longer the copper line to the cabinet the higher the risk there is to picking up noise and that can reduce speeds. Now my cabinet is around 320 meters and I have measured it with google maps. But my line attenuation shows as 17.90-18dB. Some have said that, my cabinet must be longer than that. Even if it is quite a bit longer than that my connection has almost always synced at 80Mbps.

There was only one occasion a few months ago following TalkTalk router firmware update that DLM dropped my speed to 79.6Mbps for 1-2 months and then it went back up to 80Mbps.

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

Yes, not quite normal. At 118 meters from cabinet you should get the full 80/20 speed test. Now you can wait of-course for the line to stabilize as DLM can sometimes take a while. Make sure you don't power off or reboot your router as that can disrupt the DLM process.

Crosstalk can also be a factor in reduced speeds. However, seeing that you have Virgin Media as well, I'd expect crosstalk to be less of a factor with a chunk of customers still using Virgin Media.

I sync at 80/20 Mbps in my TalkTalk router settings and I also get 80/20 in speed tests. Not absolutely every single time but most of the time I get speed tests of 80 Mbps download and 20 Mbps upload with various speed test sites.

Here's proof. https://i.imgur.com/6XC1WI7.jpg
https://i.speedof.me/201205000112-233
https://i.imgur.com/h01UK8f.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/k8Lmgoh.jpg

https://librespeed.org/results/?id=0vmhvmn Latest speed test just done now with Libre 80Mbps download, 20 Mbps upload.

And btw, I am 320 meters away from cabinet and that's with TalkTalk! I pay only £21.95 a month.

If you are 118 meters away, you should be guaranteed to receive 80 Mbps considering that my copper length is 202 meters longer than yours! In fact there are people here who claim to get 80Mbps with a 450 meter cabinet distance.

What does the Broadband Checker show? https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL/...
I'm pretty certain that if your cabinet is 118 meters away from your property, barring any crosstalk you should get VDSL Range A (Clean) 80 79 20 19 VDSL Range B (Impacted) 80 79 20 19

78Mbps would be the lowest I can expect you to receive. I have been with TalkTalk FTTC last 1 year and my router has always synced at 80/20 along with my speed tests even though my lowest estimates are between 64.8 and 68.2 Mbps in the BT Wholesale checker.

You should complain to Zen! I am assuming that you are paying £34.99 a month and only getting 73/16 Mbps? That's certainly not acceptable.

Thanks for the additional guidance. Thought I’d provide an update.

It’s all a bit strange to be honest, and I’m not sure what to think.

I spoke to Zen tech support, and in a nutshell the advisor said that around 70 Mb/s down and 16Mb/s up is the fastest t I could realistically expect. This was disappointing, but I accepted it at face value because that was what I had read on here early on.

He didn’t say much about my occasional dropouts in service, but he suggested that I should do a factory reset of the router and then try plugging it directly into the Master test socket.

He also said that the staples through the cable won’t affect my connection, and that only if it had been an outdoor cable would there have been a concern due to rain getting in. Don’t know how true that is.

I hate doing factory resets (PTSD from Virgin Media), but I did it anyway. I removed the faceplate on the Master Socket, connected the separate filter, and then connected the router directly to the test socket.

It’s been a week and there has been no difference in speed. Also, there has been one dropout of service for around 5 minutes.

The weird thing is that after I saw your post I decided to test my speed using the sites you had. Previously, to check my speeds I had always used:

1) broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk: 73 Mbps down, 14 Mbps up

2) speedtest.net: 73 Mbps down, 16 Mbps up

3) broadbandtest.which.co.uk: 73 Mbps down, 14 Mbps up

4) checker.ofcom.org.uk/broadband-test: 73 Mbps down, 17 Mbps up

5) Google’s own speed test: 72 Mbps down, 16 Mbps up


Since these were all so similar, I assumed they were accurate.

However, using your test sites, I consistently achieved:

1) AAISP: 79 Mbps down, 20 Mbps up

2) Speedofme: 82 Mbps down, 21 Mbps up!!

3) Internetfrog: 78 Mbps down, 20 Mbps up

I’m surprised that there was such a significant difference, given that the tests were repeated around the same times with minimal load on the connection. I knew different test sites could give different speed results depending on the server you connected to, but I didn’t think it could be so substantial.

Is it simply a case of choose your test, choose your result?

But then why did the Zen advisor tell me that around 70 Mbps downstream was the best I could expect?

For my address, BT’s Broadband Checker shows: VDSL Range A (Clean) 80 79 20 19 VDSL Range B (Impacted) 80 79 20 19.

If I choose the second set of results as the “true” reflections of my speed, then BT’s data is correct and the Zen advisor should have told me that something was wrong.

However, he never asked what site I used to check the speed, and simply defaulted to an answer that there was nothing to be done.

So do protocol overheads always mean that you get a lower speed than your sync speed?

Are the other speed test sites compensating for this perhaps and giving an inflated figure (or burst speeds)?

I’m still getting the occasional dropout in service. Is this common with FTTC in London? Is one dropout a week the best I can hope for?

NO you should not expect it to be normal to get drop dropouts on a regular basis. My current uptime is 19 days and that is since the last power cut here.
Have you posted anywhere what your router stats are reporting particularly the maximum achievable rate, actual sync speed and snr level? As this will tell you what you can expect your sync speed to be and subsequently the download speed achievable.

For example I am on a 50mbps package. My sync is 55000kbps max speed is 83000 noise level 17.3 and speed tests (TBB) invariably show 50000. I would expect you to get similar treatment.

But when all said and done the difference between your 73 and the max of 80 would be imperceptible.

Good point, I should probably include that info somewhere.

This is what my Fritz Box is telling me:

Max. DSLAM throughput: kbit/s Receive: 80000 Send: 20000
Min. DSLAM throughput: kbit/s Receive: 128 Send: 128
Attainable throughput: kbit/s Receive: 87900 Send: 29604
Current throughput: kbit/s Receive: 79998 Send: 19999

Latency: Receive: fast Send: fast
Impulse Noise Protection (INP): Receive: 43 Send: 0
G.INP: Receive: on Send: off
Signal-to-noise ratio (dB): Receive: 8 Send: 15
Bitswap: Receive: on Send: on
Line attenuation (dB): Receive: 7 Send: 7


I think I’m coming to terms with the fact that it is unlikely I’ll be able to tell the difference between 70 Mb/s and 80 Mb/s so I should just stop thinking about it.

It’s just a shame because even my shockingly poor Virgin Media would give me 220/20 on a 200/20 package on all speed tests.

At last you have come to the correct conclusion.....

As you said. ...." So do protocol overheads always mean that you get a lower speed than your sync speed?"

Yes throughput speed is always lower than sync speed.

Also ... "Are the other speed test sites compensating for this perhaps and giving an inflated figure (or burst speeds)?"

Speed test sites can be optimistic, fairly accurate or totally wrong.

I think Blazingspeed has not helped by claiming he can get 80Mbps throughput with an 80Mbps sync and providing "proof" with a number of obviously impossible speedtest results

Not too sure what your issue is. Are you uploading and downloading a lot? Another 2 - 3 mbps are not going to be noticed on such a high speed.

I'm on a 40 / 10 line and certain speed test show a burst of 60 mbps. Good grief, I get for a split second an extra 20 mbps. Don't notice that at all when using FaceAche or looking at emails.

Just wondered if you have viewed the info on the Zen website? i.e. view line data.

You'll probably find that your line speed will vary over the course of a few months anyway. DLM isn't as such a static tool.

I use to be with Plusnet and always got around 72Mb/s. Moved to Zen (same cable etc) and it seems 78Mb/s sync is more my normal. But I certainly don't lose any sleep about the few Mb of extra speed.

Over the past 15 months I feel I've had a good service from Zen. Sadly their days are numbered for me as we have a local ISP installing FTTP (500Mb/s up and down). But if Zen were doing the biz, I'd still have no hesitation using them.

As for their tech support, used them once when I had a line fault and I'd find it very difficult to fault their handling of it. Just did the biz.

The AAISP and Speedofme tests always give me speeds that are above what my package allows.
Their results can't be trusted.

77Mb is about as high as an 80Mb FTTC line can go, after taking off overheads.

The DLM profile can also change the maximum throughput seen.

I use the thinkbroadband speed tester and the speedtedt.net tester.
Try a few different servers on the speedtest.net site/app.

I didn't even know about the line data access!

I've just had a look and it seems the data indicates that my line speed has been identical for the past month (upstream: 19999, downstream: 79911, sync rate: 79911).

I download and upload large files frequently, and sometimes find myself noticing the difference in speed compared to when I used Virgin Media (on the few occasions it worked...). That's probably why I became fixated on my speed test, when it reality it probably won't make any difference if I did manage to eke out those last few Mbps.

You're absolutely right in that that Zen are great, especially compared to Virgin Media, in every aspect. Zen is far superior when it comes to gaming too.

But I do wonder why ISPs don't simply advertise a real-world minimum guaranteed download/upload speed for a given address rather than go by sync speeds, taking into consideration the known protocol overheads.

I can see how that would be challenging given so many variables to account for, but I'm sure it's possible. Especially when there's been such an uproar about advertised internet speeds for so long. As a consumer, I would be chuffed if my speed tests came out better than my minimum guaranteed speeds (shockingly, Virgin Media actually seem to do this).

I would venture that many consumers don't know about sync speeds and protocol overheads (I didn't until I started researching here, none of my friends and family did either when asked).

It feels a bit like buying a pizza but one of the slices is inedible because it's stuck to the lid.

I so wish I had FTTP coming to my area, but that appears to be a few years away at the very least.

Well, indeed speed tests vary considerably. I get around 75-76Mbps with Speedtest.net using the Windows app. With broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk I get 77-78Mbps speedguide.net another site I get 80Mbps.

Of-course the Speedofme is exaggerated. There's no way we are getting 82Mbps. But my point was that even with those speed test sites that I mention where I get 80/20 speed test results, these you'll not get if your router isn't syncing at the full speeds. But AAISP speed test shows

"This speed tester is hosted on the same network that broadband connections are terminated on, so this should be the closest speed tester for AAISP customers." It will apply for the rest of the ISPs on FTTC as they are on the same Openreach network.

Originally, I had the impression that you were only syncing at 73Mbps max in your router stats and not just speed tests giving you that number. That would've been a cause for concern given that your line is only 118 meters long.

But it turns out that indeed you are syncing at full sync speeds in your Fritz!Box and that for me is ultimately the most important thing. We aren't always going to get 80Mbps each time even if it was accurate. But it usually is a positive indicator that your router is syncing at full sync speeds.

Also the browser is very important. With Chromium browsers such as Opera and Opera GX Gaming Browser I get usually much better speeds and lower pings compared to Waterfox and Firefox web browsers.

However, your drop-outs are not normal. I have TalkTalk FTTC here in Central London last 13 months and apart from Firmware update and TalkTalk Exchange maintenance my connection has not dropped out once. I had problems with disconnections a lot in the past when I was on an ADSL Exchange Only line.

My TalkTalk connection syncs at 70+ days system and connection up time. I did complain in the past that I was experiencing TalkTalk 30 day connection resets. It turned out that my connection wasn't rebooting every 30 days but it was just a superficial reset counter without interrupting my connection so I was actually mistaken.

You need to investigate why your connection is dropping out even if it is once a week. Also at least when it does you should see if the connection is still syncing at 80/20 Mbps in your router stats. If connection still maintains max speeds then at least you can rule out that these drop-outs are not related to noise margin issues.

As for FTTP, if you're in London especially in a block or high rise building, there's a very good chance that you'll get Community Fibre or Hyperoptic soon! My other 2 apartments that I rent out in Central London where I visited to collect letters recently. Got letters from February that both Hyperoptic and Community Fibre have had agreements granted. Openreach FTTP however, is less likely since we've got FTTC already. Openreach don't usually upgrade areas from FTTC to FTTP.

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

"This speed tester is hosted on the same network that broadband connections are terminated on, so this should be the closest speed tester for AAISP customers." It will apply for the rest of the ISPs on FTTC as they are on the same Openreach network.

No that is incorrect. Openreach only connect the home to the exchange, what is nicknamed "last mile".

At the exchange there are a number of "wholesale" operators whom connect thousands of exchanges to the internet provider. AAISP offer a choice from BTwholesale or TalkTalkBusiness, and those networks connect to the ISP's data centre.

Each ISP then chooses how much capacity they pay for from the wholesale operator, and how many sessions they receive at their data centre. This is why people used to talk about contention, how many user sessions per wholesale link

Thinkbroadband really needs a picture of how this works.

Edited by jchamier (Wed 10-Mar-21 08:00:40)

Then why does it show on https://speedtest.aa.net.uk/ ?
They claim

"This speed tester is hosted on the same network that broadband connections are terminated on, so this should be the closest speed tester for AAISP customers."

At the bottom of their speed test? I was left with an impression that this was the reason why with this site I always get more consistent 80Mbps speed test results.

https://librespeed.org/ seems to give me similar speed test results, they seem to be clones of each other, they even look the same.

So basically their claim must be misleading. Or perhaps higher speeds because of "No Flash, No Java, No Websocket"? That's the confusion I have because I was thinking if I am a TalkTalk customer and I am getting close to max speeds on an AAISP speed test then the hosted broadband connection is terminated on the same network. What am I missing here?

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

They claim "This speed tester is hosted on the same network that broadband connections are terminated on, so this should be the closest speed tester for AAISP customers."

It is accurate for AAISP customers. Are you with AAISP as your internet provider? Perhaps they should insert a word in the phrase, ie:
"speed tester is hosted on the same network that AAISP broadband connections"

So basically their claim must be misleading.

Its not misleading, it is accurate but assumes you are a customer. If you are with another ISP then your traffic has to cross out of that ISP, across a neutral interconnect site such as LINX, and then into AAISP network to reach the speed test.

Or perhaps higher speeds because of "No Flash, No Java, No Websocket"? That's the confusion I have because I was thinking if I am a TalkTalk customer and I am getting close to max speeds on an AAISP speed test then the hosted broadband connection is terminated on the same network. What am I missing here?

Nothing. If TalkTalk has their own speed test, it would show the speeds to your ISP, not to the internet.

Edited by jchamier (Wed 10-Mar-21 12:34:22)

Yep, speedof.me just came in with 51.89 for my upload, above the profile speed. The download is higher than I normally see.

As jchamier points out different ISP's terminate at different points.

Not all OpenReach connections terminate at the same point.
OpenReach end of the link ends at the exchange.

That statement is very specific to AAISP customers.
Their tester also exaggerates speeds for their own customers. It's pretty useless.

AAISP use the Librespeed speed test that's why they look the same.
They are both inaccurate.
You cannot get 80Mb throughput on an 80Mb FTTC line.

Edited by j0hn83 (Wed 10-Mar-21 13:51:55)