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Speedtest.Speakeasy.net Accuracy

Capt Caveman

Capt Caveman

Lifer
For several months, I've been fighting with Comcast over my internet transmission speeds. I'm only able to get about 1/8 of the internet speed that I'm supposed to be getting. When I had 16mb dl speed, I could only get 2mb dl, no matter what site I went to. I have since downgraded to 1mb dl and I can only get 128kb dl at best.

The issue is with both my pc and 2 laptops even when directly connected to my modem(which has been swapped with a new DOCSIS 3.0 modem). Comcast has been over 3 different times and everything checks out fine except that my cable line that is run from the street is split with my neighbor. I have requested that they run separate lines for each of us and so far they have procrastinated to do so.

The current problem is that b/c running tests thru speedtest.speakeasy.net shows a 900mb dl speed that I'm within spec.

I am having them come out a 4th time(their top level tech and field manager are coming with their own laptops) so that I can demonstrate to them outside of speedtest no other website provides me with a dl of more than 128kb.

Cliffs:
Only get 1/8 of the internet speed that I'm supposed to be getting going to any website
Comcast says b/c speedtest shows that I'm getting the supposed speed that they're off the hook
How accurate is speedtest?

Comcast sucks and I can't switch to Verizon
 
Those speedtests load a java app that then moves random data to the central test server. If they say they got 900Kb/sec I would assume that it is pretty accurate +- 10% or so. There are about 30 "main" test servers out there, try testing against several of them. How exactly do you "know" your getting 128kb?
 
imagoon said:
Those speedtests load a java app that then moves random data to the central test server. If they say they got 900Kb/sec I would assume that it is pretty accurate +- 10% or so. There are about 30 "main" test servers out there, try testing against several of them. How exactly do you "know" your getting 128kb?
Click to expand...

I have tried multiple speedtest servers. I use Netmeter, Netlimit, Firefox's and IE's download manager to tell me the dl speed. Also just counting the time, a 6mb file shouldn't take a minute to dl if I was getting 900kb/sec dl.

No matter what website - Nvidia, Apple, Majorgeeks, Work, etc I only get 128kb at best.

Justed tried testmy.net and got this:

:::.. Download Stats ..:::
Download Connection is:: 969 Kbps about 1 Mbps (tested with 1013 kB)
Download Speed is:: 118 kB/s
Tested From:: http://testmy.net/ (Main)
Test Time:: 2010-04-15 22:01:18 GMT
Bottom Line:: 17X faster than 56K 1MB Download in 8.68 sec
Tested from a 1013 kB file and took 8.565 seconds to complete
Download Diagnosis:: May need help : running at only 13.75 % of your hosts average (comcast.net)
D-Validation Link:: http://testmy.net/stats/id-5ZR6AX2YW
User Agent:: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.2) Gecko/20100316 Firefox/3.6.2 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729) [!]

What's the difference between Download Connection and Download Speed?
 
Last edited:
Capt Caveman said:
I have tried multiple speedtest servers. I use Netmeter, Netlimit, Firefox's and IE's download manager to tell me the dl speed. Also just counting the time, a 6mb file shouldn't take a minute to dl if I was getting 900kb/sec dl.

No matter what website - Nvidia, Apple, Majorgeeks, Work, etc I only get 128kb at best.

Justed tried testmy.net and got this:

:::.. Download Stats ..:::
Download Connection is:: 969 Kbps about 1 Mbps (tested with 1013 kB)
Download Speed is:: 118 kB/s
Tested From:: http://testmy.net/ (Main)
Test Time:: 2010-04-15 22:01:18 GMT
Bottom Line:: 17X faster than 56K 1MB Download in 8.68 sec
Tested from a 1013 kB file and took 8.565 seconds to complete
Download Diagnosis:: May need help : running at only 13.75 % of your hosts average (comcast.net)
D-Validation Link:: http://testmy.net/stats/id-5ZR6AX2YW
User Agent:: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.2) Gecko/20100316 Firefox/3.6.2 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729) [!]

What's the difference between Download Connection and Download Speed?
Click to expand...

Download speed is in KiloBytes /s, connection is in Kilobits/s

Just off hand (I am not trying to be a jerk here): Comcast's 8Mb/1Mb service will only give you about 1 megabyte a second download (minus some overhead about 10% max) because the service is 8 megabits a second which 8bits/byte so 8Mbs = 1MBs. That ratio is 1/8... are you sure you have bits and bytes straight? 1mb/s = about 128KB/s which is right where the 118KB/s says you are above.

--- edit ---

6mb file I assume you mean 6 Megabyte not 6 megabits. so @ 1Mb/s or 128KB/s a six meg file should take 48 seconds in a perfect world. Add in about 10% of overhead and your looking at about 52ish seconds.
 
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I think the OP is getting confused by the units.

Comcast's 16mb (megabit) service will get about 2MB (megabyte) download speed (as reported by Internet Explorer/Firefox/etc). Notice the different capitalization.

A 1mb connection will get you around 120 KB.

The 1/8 ratio isn't an accident.
 
Okay, I'm a friggin moran. Thanks guys.

Never realized that when they advertise a particular speed it's mb and not MB.

Of course, I wonder why nobody at Comcast hasn't tried to explain this to me.
 
I'm not so sure op's test results are inline or not. I ran the test myself from the same site and here are my tests for Comcast:

Your connection is: 17352 Kbps or 17.4 Mbps
You downloaded at: 2118 kB/s
You are running: 303 times faster than 56K and can download 1 megabyte in 0.48 second(s)
Member Ident: CompID:1.60035335254E+12
Test Time:: 2010-04-16 01:25:09 GMT
Test Browser and OS info: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Test ID: W234QOCIM (if this is a screenshot go to testmy.net to see if this is fake)
Diagnosis ^info^: Awesome! 20% + : 146.3 % faster than the average for host (comcast.net)
This was tested from a 25600 kB file and took 12.086 seconds to complete

 
Capt Caveman said:
Okay, I'm a friggin moran. Thanks guys.

Never realized that when they advertise a particular speed it's mb and not MB.

Of course, I wonder why nobody at Comcast hasn't tried to explain this to me.
Click to expand...

I didn't find tier 1 Comcast support to be... smart... or unscripted... lol
 
nsafreak said:
I'm not so sure op's test results are inline or not. I ran the test myself from the same site and here are my tests for Comcast:

Your connection is: 17352 Kbps or 17.4 Mbps
You downloaded at: 2118 kB/s
You are running: 303 times faster than 56K and can download 1 megabyte in 0.48 second(s)
Member Ident: CompID:1.60035335254E+12
Test Time:: 2010-04-16 01:25:09 GMT
Test Browser and OS info: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Test ID: W234QOCIM (if this is a screenshot go to testmy.net to see if this is fake)
Diagnosis ^info^: Awesome! 20% + : 146.3 % faster than the average for host (comcast.net)
This was tested from a 25600 kB file and took 12.086 seconds to complete
Click to expand...

Op downgraded his service to the 1 Mb plan. So 115 Kb/s is normal for that. You have the 12 Mb probably.
 
Yeah sounds like the OP is getting confused with bits and bytes - the speed tests show what your internet speed is in bits. Downloads of files will be in bytes (roughly 1/10 is what I go by) so if you were originally getting 2mbyte/sec download of files, for a 16mbit/sec cable connection, that's exactly where it should be.
 
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