Proving Gig Speed

Tue Jul 17 11:50:32 UTC 2018

On 16/Jul/18 19:58, Chris Gross wrote:

> I'm curious what people here have found as a good standard for providing solid speedtest results to customers. All our techs have Dell laptops of various models, but we always hit 100% CPU when doing a Ookla speedtest for a server we have on site. So then if you have a customer paying for 600M or 1000M symmetric, they get mad and demand you prove it's full speed. At that point we have to roll out different people with JDSU's to test and prove it's functional where a Ookla result would substitute fine if we didn't have crummy laptops possibly. Even though from what I can see on some google results, we exceed the standards several providers call for.
>
> Most of these complaints come from the typical "power" internet user of course that never actually uses more than 50M sustained paying for a residential connection, so running a circuit test on each turn up is uncalled for.
>
> Anyone have any suggestions of the requirements (CPU/RAM/etc) for a laptop that can actually do symmetric gig, a rugged small inexpensive device we can roll with instead to prove, or any other weird solution involving ritual sacrifice that isn't too offensive to the eyes?

(Ookla) speed tests, in general, are a fundamental problem we grapple
with in only one of our markets, where previous ISP trust was eroded by
the incumbent. So we are all paying the price for that 20 years on,
i.e., the solution to every network problem is a speed test. If a Skype
call drops, that's a speed test. If an e-mail attachment doesn't work
properly, that's a speed tests. Wi-fi signal is bad, that's a speed
test. If Office 365 self-destructs, that's a speed test. If 8.8.8.8 goes
coo-koo, that's a speed test. You get the idea...

I always ask speed test proponents - "How do you speed test a 100Gbps
Internet service delivery :-\?"

Server-side limitations notwithstanding, as you rightly point out, the
client machine is also a potential point of contention (all pun
intended). We recently dealt with a customer that had our NOC running
around for 2 months about speed test results, only to realize that the
customer was using a USB-to-Ethernet converter for his laptop to run the
tests the whole time, which topped out at ±7Mbps, on their 100Mbps
service. With a proper laptop that had an on-board Ethernet port being
truck-rolled with an engineer to the site showing the difference, the
case is now closed. But can you imagine the amount of noise that had
been generated over the past 8 weeks?

Find me a hole where the floor is pasted with "speed tests go here" so
deep that even I can't see it, and I will throw the whole concept so far
down it won't stand the chance of ever being converted to oil.

But to answer your questions - for some customers, we insist on JDSU
testing for large capacities, but only if it's worth the effort.

Mark.