"Martin Brown" wrote in message
...
On 04/12/2013 22:44, therustyone wrote:
A bit OT, just tested my downlink speed on 4 different web sites and got

4.5
5.25
7.5
9.06
(Mbit/sec)

and uplink varying from 300 kb/sec to 1 Mbit/sec.

How can they be so different and are any credible ?

rusty

It depends how close the site is to your entry onto the internet. If you
choose an underpowered server on the other side of the world then you get
a much slower speed than to a core server close to your ISP.

When I benchmark mine I get a pretty solid result +/- 10% on any
reasonable UK based tester. I have spent a while tuning my system up to
get the BRAS up to 5Mbps on a rural line.

BT speed tester with advanced diagnostics and BBC iPlayer diagnostics are
both reasonably powerful servers that can really exercise a link.

If you are streaming it over congested local WiFi all bets are off.



Yes, thats useful, the fastest was BBC which said there was enough for HD
iPlayer.

uswitch, or something similar, was the slowest. Do they have a vested
interest in showing a slow speed and all the competing ISI's rather faster ?

and it was over Wi-Fi with two or three routers visible nearby. I'll give
the direct ethernet connection a test later,though that's 25 m long.


rusty