How Fast is Your Broadband?

[Polar Bear]

We pay those very nice people at BT for upto 8mbs but usually get around 2 to 3.5.   I am considering swapping to Talk Talk and saving £25 per month on phone and internet yet still having exactly the same service provided by BT for Talk Talk.

Testing the line this evening with different sites it has been between 0 and 6.something.   Mainly in the area of 2 though 

[Lizzie]

Paying for 8 and seemingly getting 1.3 

[Elleigh]

0.3 mbps here in rural Essex. It's supposed to be 8.0 mbps. Bummocks!

I'm 0.2 grrrr!

[bobajobrob]

Paying for 2mb and getting 1.8 so I'm happy with that.

[Maladict]

I pay for 4 and get 3.8.

mmmm, cable!

[MercuryKev]

I pay for up to 8 and get 6.2, but when I upgraded it said that it would get a max of around 6 from my exchange.

[DaveJ]

I pay for "up to 24", currently connecting at 15 and a bit.  Actual transfer rate (downloading SP3 for Windows XP) 1.59 MB/sec which I guess equates to around 12.7 Mbps.

As other people have said, Auntie's speed tester isn't even vaguely accurate.

Dave

[Elleigh]

0.3 mbps here in rural Essex. It's supposed to be 8.0 mbps. Bummocks!

I'm 0.2 grrrr!

Mine is now 1mb 

[urban_biker]

8.5 here at work. You'd think it would be better seeing as I work for the worlds largest phone company.

[Pingu]

1.9 allegedly.

[Moondog]

1.1 to 1.8   Never ever never above 2. Provider tells me 8 is a possibility

N

[Mr Larrington]

Mine at home is also supposed to be up to 8.  When I first got it, I would occasionally see 5, but these days it's about 2.3

[hellymedic]

Mine at home is also supposed to be up to 8.  When I first got it, I would occasionally see 5, but these days it's about 2.3

Lookshery! I've not exceeded 2!

[Greenbank]

Fast enough. The exact numbers are unimportant.

[hellymedic]

Fast enough. The exact numbers are unimportant.

I presume this means you don't get videos breaking up. You are lucky. I sometimes have to give up watching a short news report or YouTube vid if I can't watch 5 seconds at a stretch.

[Greenbank]

I presume this means you don't get videos breaking up. You are lucky. I sometimes have to give up watching a short news report or YouTube vid if I can't watch 5 seconds at a stretch.

That's got nothing really to do with the speed of your broadband. The 1.9Mbps you say you're getting is easily enough for realtime streaming video as that usually has a maximum bitrate of about 512kbps.

It can, however, be caused by many other problems such as contention at the DSLAM in the exchange, poor/busy network infrastructure at the exchange, slow/congested/faulty/problematic link(s) somewhere between the exchange and the source of the video stream, or routing problems sending some packets a longer/slower route between the two.

As for avoiding it, just hit pause on the video stream and do something else for 30 seconds or longer whilst it continues to load. When you come back to the page it will have buffered a lot more of the stream and you should avoid seeing it break up as it runs out of buffered data.

[RainOrShine]

0.3 mbps here in rural Essex. It's supposed to be 8.0 mbps. Bummocks!

I'm 0.2 grrrr!

I'd be quite happy with your 0.2.

in the associated news article, Ofcom claim that "the geographical digital divide had been closed after its research found that homes in rural areas were more likely to have broadband than those in towns".

Not here it ain't. I looked for the "44K" voting button but couldn't find it...

[hellymedic]

0.3 mbps here in rural Essex. It's supposed to be 8.0 mbps. Bummocks!

I'm 0.2 grrrr!

I'd be quite happy with your 0.2.

in the associated news article, Ofcom claim that "the geographical digital divide had been closed after its research found that homes in rural areas were more likely to have broadband than those in towns".

Not here it ain't. I looked for the "44K" voting button but couldn't find it...

I've fixed that for you now.

[Gandalf]

I pay for 'up to' 8 Mbps.

That sort of language pisses me off in the grand manner.

You don't go into the fish and chip shop and expect to be offered "dinner up to the quality of caviar".
You don't go into Kwick-Fit and order shock absorbers "up to Formula one capability".
You don't see railway timetables that offer services from London to Manchester "at speeds as fast as half an hour".

So why the fcuk can these shysters advertise their internet speeds thusly?

Yours

Major Marjorie Greenink (ret'd)

Given that the vast majority of people are on variable, as opposed to fixed rate I can't see how it could be described in any other terms than 'up to'.

[bobajobrob]

I think that being offered an "all you can eat" buffet that's limited to five plates would be a better analogy.

[Gandalf]

I think that being offered an "all you can eat" buffet that's limited to five plates would be a better analogy.

Perhaps an even  better analogy would be 'all you can eat bearing in mind that some people can carry more plates because they have less further to travel to their table and the route may have fewer obstacles''.

[Greenbank]

More of a "all you can eat buffet but you can only put 500g of food on your plate at a time." but you can make as many trips as you like.

[GruB]

Last night it was 0.5 and that was with 2 x 512 RAM.
I have just installed the DDR 1GB x 2 RAM sticks and now it is 1.9 !!!
Everything is much quicker, page loading, mouse, typing etc.
Wey hey 

[oldcobblers]

3.4 in Somerset

[Greenbank]

Last night it was 0.5 and that was with 2 x 512 RAM.
I have just installed the DDR 1GB x 2 RAM sticks and now it is 1.9 !!!
Everything is much quicker, page loading, mouse, typing etc.
Wey hey 

Which goes to show how crap these online speed tests are.