Hi, new to the forum so be gentle! [wink]
I've been on cable now for a couple of years on and off. I'm in Cardiff and are on the 10mb connection.
I'm a little concerned over the speeds I've been getting recently, they seem to vary considerably.
I know NTL use proxies, which is my main concern in determining my actual speed of my connection in the real world. What tests can I conduct to prove whether my connection is running as it should be?
Let me explain, I used to work for 3rd line tech support for a certain dsl company. Users with slow connections could connect using
speedtester@speedtester.bt.com (IIRC) and could navigate to speedtestet.bt.com where they could conduct a speed test, if the results fell within certain margins would prove whether the connection was running as it should. May I add those margins are terribly slow, 2mb connection IIRC could run as slow as 400kbps!
What sites can I go to that will be a true indication of my connection?
If I goto the likes of microsoft and say download sp2 (250mb ish) it'll come down at a decent rate, I guess it's cause it's cached in the NTL proxy.
If I go to dslguide.org.uk speedtest I struggle to get over 200kbps. I know the bandwidth isn't garunteed on that site, so fair play dslguide.org.uk could simply be overrun.
I jumped onto speedtester.bt.com and again about the same speed of dslguide.
Reboot the modem your saying? Done.
Let me explain my home network.
I have a linsys wrt54g wireless router, into which is connected a server using two 100mb ethernet cables (don't ask). Then on the wireless side I connect to a macbook (brandnew), two PC's both running xp pro and sometimes a dell pda.
All the machines are well maintained no viruses etc... I've even connected the macbook and the server (suse10.1) independantly straight into the cable modem bypassing the router and the results are the same. Poor.
What I'm looking for is some sort of tests I can conduct that I can take to the "wonderfull" ntl tech support to get something sorted. Between proxies, peak times etc... It's not really helping.
What I suspect is that if it's cached by the proxie then I will get a good download speed. But what about all the stuff that isn't cached?
What test can I conduct that will give me a true indication of the speed on my connection?
---------- Post added at 23:47 ---------- Previous post was at 23:16 ----------
Ok so I am now trying out the different speed test's on that are listed on this website. Guess I should have read more. Will post results... :Z