Speedtest Thoughts

[Konaguy]

I think I figured out why I don't get very good results using DSL Reports Speedtests (http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest) .
I did some speed tests there today. It only tested as high as 8.8Mbps.
Which wouldn't be a problem if I didn't have a 11Mbps DSL service.

Below is the speedtest results I get off a bunch of high bandwidth capacity NDT servers.

[LocalMotion]

Yeah DSL Reports test are not very accurate...

The best is www.speedtest.net

Try that one and post your results, you can even copy a image to post that they provide.

Here's mine:

http://www.speedtest.net/result/295847864.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

[Konaguy]

Yeah, that's what I figured too. Here is my results :

http://www.speedtest.net/result/295850055.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

[MadRussian]

Well, it's not that bad in compare to my :o

http://www.speedtest.net/result/299133983.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

[tutusue]

I recently upgraded my DSL. Can't remember if it's to 7mbps or 11, but it costs an additional $4. per month. I see no improvement. Actually, I see less speed. Gotta call HawTelcom. :mad:

[Menehune Man]

Okay, so it chose San Francisco to use?
http://www.speedtest.net/result/299189731.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

[tutusue]

It appears I'm ok if I upgraded to 7 mbps but not ok if it's supposed to be 11.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/299198035.png
Oh, wait! It says "kb/s". I'm sooooo lost! The Untechie Tutu strikes again! :D

[Likeke]

http://geo.coolflame.net/i_mages/speedtest.jpg

[Konaguy]

It appears I'm ok if I upgraded to 7 mbps but not ok if it's supposed to be 11.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/299198035.png
Oh, wait! It says "kb/s". I'm sooooo lost! The Untechie Tutu strikes again! :D

If you are paying only 4.00 a month then it is the 7Mbps/1Mbps service.
Don't worry you are getting right on the money speeds for 7Mbps tier service.

Aaron

[tutusue]

If you are paying only 4.00 a month then it is the 7Mbps/1Mbps service.
Don't worry you are getting right on the money speeds for 7Mbps tier service.

Aaron
Thank you so much, Aaron. As you can tell, I don't get this techie stuff at all. What's strange is I'm finding this new, higher priced speed no speedier than the slower speed. Maybe I was expecting too much. :confused:

[MyopicJoe]

I don't get this techie stuff at all.

Don't worry, Tutusue. Even a tech savvy person as myself gets frustrated and confused (I'm currently pulling my hair out, learning how to encode DV files from my camcorder into MPEG-2 files for DVD, without losing a lot of quality). Historically the tech industry has done a horrible job at making products and services user friendly. Excellent industrial design is one key to Apple's success in the consumer market.


When looking at the results of your SpeedTest, there are two numbers you need to pay attention to, which affect your user experience:

The first performance number, the one you paid money for, goes by many names: "data rate", "throughput", "bandwidth", "speed", etc. In your case it's 6,222 kb/s. This is the AVERAGE speed at which you can download LARGE amounts of data from the Internet. Let's say you're downloading a large file like a movie (non-profit of course ;) ). From moment to moment the speed will fluctuate. Sometimes slower, sometimes faster, but in general it'll take less time for you to download your file. Perhaps only 1 hour instead of 4 hours (I made those numbers up).

The second performance number, which you didn't pay money for, is the "ping time". This is the time it takes to send a SMALL bit of data from your computer to one on the mainland. It's a measure of how responsive things are. In your case it's 213 ms (milliseconds). This is not a surprising number for those of us who live in Hawaii, when trying to browse websites on the mainland.

The first number is important to people who spend most of their time downloading large files. The second number affects your general web browsing experience.


Here are some car analogies:

Let's say you live in Ewa and you need to move to your new home in Hawaii Kai. Going from 7 Mbps service to 11 Mbps service is like moving your furniture with a semi-truck instead of a hatchback. With the semi you can put all your belongings into a single Matson container and get it done in one trip. With a hatchback you'd need multiple trips. You'd waste most of your day driving back and forth.

Now instead of moving, let's say you're late for a friend's party and you want to get there ASAP. You could take a semi-truck but imagine how slow it would be trying to get through traffic. You'd rather take your hatchback. It's got better acceleration and is faster...but good luck trying to move your furniture with it ;)

Of course I don't mean to say 7 Mbps service will give you better web browsing than 11 Mbps. It'll be the same for both.


Some random background info:

Currently Internet service providers (ISPs) have little control over ping time, otherwise they would love to charge you for it. The industry doesn't have the infrastructure to control Internet traffic to a fine degree. Basically everyone's data is lumped together in a big mess.

The catch word is "Quality of Service". This is the ability for an ISP to guarantee a specific customer (i.e. higher paying customer) a certain level of performance. ISPs want this because it'll improve their profits. Net Neutrality people don't like this for many reasons. I won't go much into it because it's politically charged and I'm ill-informed on the matter.

[MyopicJoe]

I should clarify a bit. The first performance number, "speed", is important for web browsing, but up to a point. It all depends on what kind of websites you visit.

If you're mostly visiting text only sites with few pictures/ads, then dial-up is fine. Most websites like to use a lot of pictures these days, so you'll notice an improvement moving up to high-speed internet. I suppose if you visit websites that use a lot of Flash (i.e. artists), maybe perhaps getting faster internet might help, but when it comes to Flash, the performance of your computer is important too.

[th0m4s]

I just upgraded to RR 8mbps service in Kapahulu. This is the fastest test speed I've ever seen my connection at. Does it compensate for compression?

http://www.speedtest.net/result/299523454.png (http://www.speedtest.net)


I've usually done tests at dslreports.com. Here's a run I just made now:

http://www.dslreports.com/im/54693607/6632.png

[Konaguy]

I have found that the DSL Reports speed tests don't give accurate results for anything over 8Mbps. Whenever I have tried their speedtests I would get lousy results. On the other hand whenever I use speedtest.net or the NDT servers I get great results.

The only DSL Reports speedtest that gives me remotely accurate results is the one located at LavaNet.

[Konaguy]

Thank you so much, Aaron. As you can tell, I don't get this techie stuff at all. What's strange is I'm finding this new, higher priced speed no speedier than the slower speed. Maybe I was expecting too much. :confused:

No problem, for 4.00 more extra a month I'd stick with the 7Mbps service before
downgrading to 3Mbps. Even though you don't notice a difference, there is benefits in the higher tier speed like downloading files.

In my case, I've downloaded music off of ITunes at 1Mbps. Which is huge improvement over what I was getting before.

[tutusue]

[...]In your case it's 213 ms (milliseconds). This is not a surprising number for those of us who live in Hawaii, when trying to browse websites on the mainland.

The first number is important to people who spend most of their time downloading large files. The second number affects your general web browsing experience.[...]
It's my general web browsing experience that seems to be affected. Pages such as HT and woot.com take several seconds to download.
No problem, for 4.00 more extra a month I'd stick with the 7Mbps service before downgrading to 3Mbps. Even though you don't notice a difference, there is benefits in the higher tier speed like downloading files.

In my case, I've downloaded music off of ITunes at 1Mbps. Which is huge improvement over what I was getting before.
Downloading from iTunes has always been incredibly fast. The first 2 years I used the iTMS I downloaded via dial-up! :o

Here's my report from my town DSL connection. The one above is from Makaha.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/299556339.png
The 2 aren't that much different. I wish I'd tested prior to upgrading.

[Konaguy]

It's my general web browsing experience that seems to be affected. Pages such as HT and woot.com take several seconds to download.


It sounds like a DNS issue to me. The pages should download instantly over
a 7Mbps/11Mbps connection. If they don't A) It could be a problem with the connection B) a DNS issue.

I'm thinking its more on the lines of B). Especially since you are getting rated
speeds off your connection. I would check out Open DNS http://www.opendns.com/ . If the DNS is slow in resolving www.yahoo.com
in a numerical address, it will slow your page loads.

Yeah I know I just switch away from Open DNS. But its far easier to configure than the software solution (Treewalk) that I installed.

[MyopicJoe]

Pages such as HT and woot.com take several seconds to download.

From my experience HT can be slow at times. I suspect it's the server which hosts HT, but it could also be my Internet connection (Road Runner).

Took a few seconds for Woot to open up. A little faster the second time, since my browser cached some of the contents from the homepage.

Yeah. A before and after SpeedTest would have been nice. Is it easy/practical to cancel the service? If you're really curious.

[tutusue]

[...]Is it easy/practical to cancel the service? If you're really curious.
I honestly don't know if it's easy or practical to downgrade to my previous speed. I just don't feel I'm getting more bang for my 4 additional bucks per month. Actually, 8 additional bucks as I upgraded at 2 locations. While I'm sure it exists, I see absolutely no difference.

[GregLee]

It sounds like a DNS issue to me.
I've used squid on my Linux system for about a year, with the hope that it speeds interactive things up. Firefox is configured to do all it's web references through squid. Here is an excerpt from squid's man page: "squid keeps meta data and especially hot objects cached in RAM, caches DNS lookups, supports non-blocking DNS lookups, and implements negative caching of failed requests."

About all I've done to see if it actually works is check squid's log file to see that there are quite a few web requests being filled from squid's cache.

Since woot.com was mentioned, I just now watched my clock as I opened its web page (never been there before) -- took about 3 seconds to see it on screen and a little less than 7 seconds before Firefox said it had the whole page loaded. I closed it and opened it again, and this time it took around one second and 3 seconds, respectively.

(I use Hawaiian Tel DSL at 3Gbs nominal download speed.)

[Konaguy]

I had problems with Verizon Hawaii's DNS servers awhile back. So I decided to use Treewalk. Which help immeasurably in eliminating any DNS slowness problems.