Broadband speed

[omelette]

After checking on three different Online Speed Check sites, my average broadband download speed is 240Kbps and my average upload speed is 370Kbps.

Is this good, average or poor?

Thank you!

[ChuckFickens]

Dreadful!

try this one, what result do you get here?

http://www.speedtest.bbmax.co.uk/

[MarkRae]

All speed "test" sites are rubbish, whatever anyone else on here is about to tell you. The reason is that all they are measuring is the current speed of data between themselves and your machine, not your actual download CAPACITY. Imagine if only one browser was using e.g. speedtest.net compared to, say, a couple of thousand. In addition, there will typically be upwards of a dozen servers in between your machine and the speed "test" site that the IP packets have to hop over. All it takes is for one of them to be experiencing higher than normal stresses and the figures you get will be way off the mark.

The only true way to test your download capacity is to download several largish files at the same time from a server as close to your ISP's network as possible until your bandwidth is completely saturated, and then add their individual speeds together.

Also, make sure that you understand the difference between bits and bytes. Typically, Windows shows download speed in (kilo)bytes, but the broadband industry tends to measure throughput in (kilo)bits or (mega)bits.

Therefore, if you've got a "20 meg" line, that is supposed to give you *up to* (and that's also important!) 20 megabits of download capacity. That equates to 2.5 megabytes of download capcity:
http://www.easycalcul...dwidth-calculator.php

[buildersmate]

Ah, just the man. I've got an issue with this too. Your test site comes out with 500kbps download, 300kbps upload, for me.
Live about 1.5 miles from the BT exchange, use BT as my ISP. Should I start yanking the rest of my (non-used) cabling off the spare telephone points that aren't used before whingeing at BT? Too much stray capacitance? What does BT's Accelerator do exactly - an inline inductor, do you reckon?

[ChuckFickens]

Hi BM

I would try removing the faceplate from your NTE5 master socket and try plugging the router direct into the test socket behind the faceplate to eliminate internal wiring problems before ripping the extensions out.

As far as I can work out the BT accelerator is a high quality ADSL filter with the extra feature of not having the ringing wire connected (not used for modern phones) as having that wire connected is known to cause problems with broadband on occasions. (you can just disconnect the orange bell wire in the socket, this can improve ADSL speeds sometimes)

[Wak]

Hi Omelette, I have a friend whose download speed is smaller than the upload speed whereas I reckon the download speed should be over 10 times the upload speed depending upon your computer being able to handle the speed and store the downloaded information.
My friend had very little RAM memory to spare and consequently suffers from very slow download speed as the computer is constantly shuffling info from the RAM on to spare spaces on the hard drive.
My computer has enough RAM to cope and my speeds this morning are 5454 kbps download and 451kbps upload which works out at roughly to a 12:1 ratio.
How much RAM memory have you got and could it be having trouble by not having the instant capacity to store the downloaded information????
Maybe that could be your problem??? or maybe I'm just talking rubbish but it seems quite logical to me.

[buildersmate]

Thanks, CF - will give it a try.

[VaaMachi]

It depends on the bandwidth of your broadband plan. If your plan is 2Mbps plan then the results are normal. To get most accurate download speed and upload speed ,do extended speed scan in http://www.scanmyspeed.com/ .