Broadband query

[Timothy Murphy]

Is there an agreed definition of broadband speed?

My xDSL modem reports the speeds ========================= VDSL Port Details Upstream Downstream Line Rate: 18.751 Mbps 71.678 Mbps Actual Net Data Rate: 18.752 Mbps 71.679 Mbps =========================

Speedtest.net gives ========================= Selecting best server based on latency... Hosted by Digiweb (Dublin) [1.78 km]: 26.951 ms Testing download speed........................................ Download: 65.75 Mbits/s Testing upload speed.................................................. Upload: 17.24 Mbits/s =========================

Not as much difference as I expected ...

I'm not a BT customer, and the speedtest at did not work for me.

[Tim Streater]

Ask your router, it will tell you the raw line speed between you and the exchange. I'm not sure whether that is then the transmission speed you can expect between you and your ISP's router.

Even if it is, there will be many other routers between that one (both of your ISP and other network carriers) between you and any particular final host you are communicating with. And of course the lines connecting those equipment items may be fast, slow, congested, uncongested, ...

[Chris French]

In message , Tricky Dicky writes

Depending on my mood I use the Think Broadband one:

Oopla:

or

BT Wholesale:

At any one time they vary a bit, but it's all in the same ball park..

Using them to see how speed might vary at different times probably more useful than the absolute speed.

Variations between laptop and ipad are presumably down to differences in the wifi connection. Really if you want to be checking the lie speed you need to use a wired connection - here the line speed is normally better than anything does on the wifi

[OG]

Generally I use

; having tried the ones mentioned above, they all give broadly similar results (27M~ish up and 3.5M~ish down).

[Weatherlawyer]

Sounds like you have ample grounds for getting a decent ISP to replace BT. I was using my laptop at a friends today and it was the worst POS I can remember using in a lOOOOOOng time.

The connection was not at max according to my linux connection. I told him it looked like it was capped he said it is unlimited and wouldn't listen.

A Microsoftie and heavily into chains and whips I imagine judging by his Microsoft 8 and iPhone arsephilia. Not the sort of person you can reason with.

Get yourself a bells and whistles Linux distro and see what the f*ck they are playing at.

[Andy Burns]

Several ;-)

So that's what the raw line is currently synced at

That's the speed from your PC to a nearby speedtest.net server, including all the protocol overhead and any limits applied by your ISP, so it's more typical of the best speed you'll get to anyone who has fast servers.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

A 'decent' ISP will sort out problems which are likely caused by the internal house wiring?

[tony sayer]

In article , Dave Plowman (News) scribeth thus

Yes as they can push openreach usually a bit better than what BT do themselves.

I've known Zen to have sorted out two very duff instals when the other IPS's said that was the best they could do!.

One was BT the other Eclipse..

[Dave Plowman (News)]

When the system works ok on one internal socket, but not another?

They are willing to replace (or whatever) internal wiring? For free?

[tony sayer]

In article , Dave Plowman (News) scribeth thus

Well its surprising what the openreach bloke might just sort for some tea and biccies;)

OK they can't be there all day but if its just a bit of sorting stuff in an extension box not a real problem..

It just might give the impression of good customer service and goodwill towards a customer not something thats very high on BT's list of things to do ...

[Dave Liquorice]

The "sync" speed.

The backhaul connection will be pretty damn quick, maybe up to 10 Gbps or more but you don't get to see anything like that. There is no buffering within the ATM network so to avoid lost packets there is another rate, the BRAS rate. This is passed to the ISP and defines the maximum rate that the ISP can send data to you. This is less than the sync rate by up to 500 kbps.

Google has just coughed up this rather good document, it may go into too much detail. B-)