Many broadband users pay for a certain speed and never bother to check if they are actually receiving the speed they are paying for.
For those that do want to check whether they are getting their correct speed, there are many tests to choose from. Just google ‘Broadband Speed Test’ and you will find hundreds of tests. The problem is…most of them don’t give a correct number, particularly if you have a fast connection. I faced this problem a few weeks ago when I upgraded my home connection to 50Mbps. I wanted to make sure that before the engineer left I was getting the best speed possible, but I found it hard to generate numbers that made sense.
Here’s the results I got from the various tests I could find:
- My own Broadband Speed Test – 39Mbps – 78% of max potential.
Think Broadband – 27.9Mbps, 55% of max potential. I was really disappointed with this test as this used to produce the most accurate results and was the one I used to recommend. They clearly can’t handle fast connections.- Speedtest - 49Mbps, 98% of max potential!
- ZDNet – 22Mbps, 44% of max potential!
- Giganews – average 45Mbps over 5 mins, 90% of max potential.
The Giganews result allowed me to confirm that I am actually getting my full 50Mbps broadband speed, which makes the results of some of the broadband speed tests I tried pretty shocking. Speedtest seems to be the most reliable and the one I’d recommend, but always remember to try a few other sites to double-check results.
If you are having connection problems it could be down to packet loss, so you should also do a Ping test.
