Speed Test Results

Sean Harlow sean at seanharlow.info
Mon Dec 26 03:06:56 UTC 2011


Basically it's a CYA statement on the part of Ookla/speedtest.net, since their test sites are of varying quality.  The Radnor, OH test site sometimes can't even properly test a 10mbit SOHO broadband connection, where the Toledo site is consistently able to flood every available bit of capacity on my 50/5 home connection.

It's just another tool that needs to be used intelligently.  If I'm testing out a new ISP or a new speed level I've never had before, I wouldn't immediately complain if I didn't get the expected result on a public speed test site as it may be something outside of my ISP's control.  On the other hand if things start dragging on my home connection or anywhere else that I know I can expect a certain result speedtest.net is usually my first stop.
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Sean Harlow
sean at seanharlow.info

On Dec 25, 2011, at 9:43 PM, Grant Ridder wrote:

> Even though the faq's say they are only good for residential usage, i have
> had no problems with it at school.  My college has 2x 100 Mb circuits from
> TW.  When i run speed tests (I use speedtest.net) with the campus empty, i
> can get around 95Mb up.  The bottleneck is the school's 100Mb switches.
> When the campus is filled (during the week) i can normally get close to 40
> Mb down on a test.
> 
> -Grant





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