Speed Test Discrepancy

[JasonD52]

I have 35/35 service, and have Mac and PC's on my network, wired and wireless.  On Verizon's FIOS speed test sight, my wired computers show a near perfect 35/35 everytime.  On the Myspeed site, a consistent 20 down/12up.  On sites like Speakeasy and their ilk it's a consistent 7/7.  The wireless speeds are a bit lower.  I've run all the optimizers for Mac and PC's, but no change.

So which site is correct?  I'm afraid Verizon's servers see my connection, cross-reference it with their customer database to see what speed I've paid for, and make sure the test results show that every time.  Or is Verizon right and these other web sites are wrong?

[jumpin68ny]

I like to use Speedtest.net

The results may vary but I do get close to the 20/5 I currently pay for.

[JasonD52]

Speedtest consistently gives me about a third of what my speed should be.  It's frustrating to get a 10/10 result from Speedtest, then go straight to the Verizon speed page and get 35.1/35.1 (never 34.9) every time.

[prisaz]

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@JasonD52 wrote:

I have 35/35 service, and have Mac and PC's on my network, wired and wireless.  On Verizon's FIOS speed test sight, my wired computers show a near perfect 35/35 everytime.  On the Myspeed site, a consistent 20 down/12up.  On sites like Speakeasy and their ilk it's a consistent 7/7.  The wireless speeds are a bit lower.  I've run all the optimizers for Mac and PC's, but no change.

So which site is correct?  I'm afraid Verizon's servers see my connection, cross-reference it with their customer database to see what speed I've paid for, and make sure the test results show that every time.  Or is Verizon right and these other web sites are wrong?

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I hardly think Verizon looks at your provisioning and then gives false readings to make it look good. Sounds like something cable would do. Some sites or routers from point A to point B may bog down a connection, and that is out of Verizon's control once it leaves their network. Many speed test are based on the NDT Java code. Many are not. I know the original Verizon speed test would output results similar to the results displayed by NDT servers. I am not sure of the testing methods used by different servers now. But here is a link to an NDT server, that has links to other NDT servers below its test screen. If you look at some of the results, they will show the slowest connecting in the end to end result. It is difficult to know who's router that my be getting hit to slow things down. Sometimes a tracert will display the slow spot.

http://miranda.ctd.anl.gov:7123/

[jumpin68ny · Accepted solution]

I should also mention that enabling parental controls slows the router down and having my virus scan on gives false reading.  I don't have parental controls on anymore and when I run speed tests I disable my virus scan program.

Jim

[prisaz]

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@jumpin68ny wrote:

I should also mention that enabling parental controls slows the router down and having my virus scan on gives false reading.  I don't have parental controls on anymore and when I run speed tests I disable my virus scan program.

Jim

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Yes parental controls on the router is a hog. I tried it and then decided to go to a different route. It seems the router would hit Asia evertime to see if the site was good. Not good. I use Windows Live family safety on my daughters PC.

[JasonD52]

I didn't think about the parental controls on the router.  But why isn't it slowing down the Verizon test page, also?  I would think it would slow ALL speed tests down.

Anyway, I'll try the link above and disable the P.C. when I get home and see what happens.

[Hubrisnxs]

I have multiple DS3's at work for which I connect to the internet, and testing at speedtest.net RARELY gives me accurate results.results.  when I go to the fios test site, it more closely resembles my connection which is 40 + MBS dedicated.

So the fios site is correct, the other sites are a chain of mom and pop ISP's with interspersed carriers.  in fact none of the people that host speedtest pops at speedtest.net or speakeasy are tier 1 ISP's.  So the results are going to widely vary, and from my experience with them, they aren't designed for high upload speeds.   please remember barely any provider except FiOS and ATT UVERSE deliver 35 mb download and upload.

my cable provider at my in laws house fastest upload is 7 mbs.    that is a pale comparison to fios's 35 mb upstream, so from my experience, those cable companies are what the speakeasy and speedtest.net websites were designed for.   not for mammoth uploads and downloads like fios offers, or my offices ds3 connections.

If you don't trust the verizon site, then you will want to set up a real world test with another fios user, or a friend that works at a place that has a ds3 or larger connection, and set up like an FTP server, and transfer back and forth LARGE files.

remember the person you choose to do this with has to have a similiar speed connection, or your test will be bunk!

[jumpin68ny]

I set up an FTP server on my desktop and a friend who is also on FiOS but in Pittsburgh copied a file from me and the most we saw speed wise out of it was 142 kbps.  The file was 450meg and took a long time.  

How can I get better speed out of an ftp transfer that would give some good band width speeds?  My friend and I both have 20/5 service and I used cerebus ftp for the server and he used simple dos ftp commands to perform the transfer.

[Hubrisnxs]

well the fastest you can do on that is 5 mb per second, but your transferring at a little over 1 mb per second, so that is pretty wierd.  try sending multiple files at the same time, and see if they maintain that same kb/s   or if it halves and quarters with the increase of simultaneous files.