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NetAdmin
CCNA
join:2008-05-22
| Re: Old data and biased source - the CWA who hate telecom mgt said by iansltx  :At any rate, check out speedtest.net for a more accurate picture of internet speeds by country, continent, state and city. Their location data is suspect because they use GeoIP-like methods for guessing where a given host is located.
These guys' results are sort of bunk. Especially since RCN's speeds on Speedtest.net exceed anything on Asia's top 10, ISP wise. Speedtest users can shop servers, going from server to server getting the best results. So Speedtest.net is not even close to scientific or much better than the Speedmatters tests.
Most providers, including RCN, are nowhere near the speed of some of the other providers in other nations. | |
|  iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
 ·Comcast
 ·Qwest.net
 ·magicjack.com
 ·BeeCreek Communica..
·Sprint Mobile Broa..
| Re: Old data and biased source - the CWA who hate telecom mgt Interesting, because they do a decent job of locating me: in the city I live near.
Also, shopping servers is fine. To get a true speed test result ou pick the server with the most capacity possible. I'm guessing that's why Speedtest.net doesn't put latency in the graphs 
They also keep track of the IP doing the speed test, so they can do some normalization.
Additionally, is there really a better alternative than Speedtest.net's stats? Theirs is a TON more scientific than SpeedMatters. On the one hand you have 400+ million tests, and on the other 40,000, a number that isn't even statistically significant given the number of people using the internet in the US. Granted, Speedtest.net isn't US-only but I'm betting 100+ million of its results are. So yes, it is much mroe scientific to look at their results than Speedmatters'.
About RCN vs. other providers, I noticed when I looked at Europe that they had a lot of ISPs over there testing in the (real world) 40 Mbit range. That's cool. FiOS can do that too.
Responding to another post, Norway probably can't get ultra high speed access everywhere, and if it does, I'd hate to see how much is going from taxpayers' pockets to subsidize the access. | |
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NetAdmin
CCNA
join:2008-05-22
| Re: Old data and biased source - the CWA who hate telecom mgt said by iansltx :Interesting, because they do a decent job of locating me: in the city I live near. And? The point is that the method used for getting that information does not accurately determine position - zip code, etc. IP location services that attempt to guess your location like that have serious issues. All of those services that guess your location based on IP do a decent job estimating your location, but they are nowhere near accurate enough to be relied upon for zip, street, etc. information.
Also, shopping servers is fine. To get a true speed test result ou pick the server with the most capacity possible. I'm guessing that's why Speedtest.net doesn't put latency in the graphs
They also keep track of the IP doing the speed test, so they can do some normalization. That would be fine if all the ISPs gave their customers static IPs... As it is, most do not just hand out statics to residential customers, including the one I work for, so normalization is useless.
Additionally, is there really a better alternative than Speedtest.net's stats? Theirs is a TON more scientific than SpeedMatters. Not even close. Neither is scientific. Speedmatters, however, controls their test servers. Speedtest does not control all of the servers used for speed testing.
On the one hand you have 400+ million tests, and on the other 40,000, a number that isn't even statistically significant given the number of people using the internet in the US. Granted, Speedtest.net isn't US-only but I'm betting 100+ million of its results are. So yes, it is much mroe scientific to look at their results than Speedmatters'. Sorry, more data does not necessarily mean better data, especially when no quality control is performed on that data.
Responding to another post, Norway probably can't get ultra high speed access everywhere, and if it does, I'd hate to see how much is going from taxpayers' pockets to subsidize the access. And that is different than the US how? I will say that, at least in countries like Norway, people are willing to invest tax money into infrastructure. I can think of a dozen or so infrastructure projects in this country that need to be funded but aren't for whatever reason (the money probably went to something stupid like tax breaks for some special group or a museum on the preparation of pigs' feet in BFE). | |
| | | iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
·Comcast
·Qwest.net
·magicjack.com
·BeeCreek Communica..
·Sprint Mobile Broa..
| Re: Old data and biased source - the CWA who hate telecom mgt Customers' IPs wouldn't change while they're shopping servers for a better result.
Also, I said *some* normalization, not *total* normalization.
About SpeedMatters, 300 Mbit to one server and 45 to the other are NOT enough to give accurate speed test results, particularly if the servers are only homed into one network, and I'm betting that the 45 Mbit server was. Compare this with places like Data393 where they have multi-gigabit links available and you'll see that Speedmatters will have an obvious bias to the lower end on speeds.
Also, if Speedmatters had only two servers for speed tests overall, versus a few dozen that speedtest.net has (through various providers) then if they had enough tests to get "accurate" results the servers woul be too overloaded to give accurate results.
Also, are you saying that no trends can be taken from 400 MILLION tests, a lot of which are in the US, and that Speedmatters' number of tests is valuable for trending information though the same number of tests is taken by Speedtest.net every 1.5 hours or so? I don't buy it.
How about using BBR's speed test results, does that work better for ya? | |
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NetAdmin
CCNA
join:2008-05-22
| Re: Old data and biased source - the CWA who hate telecom mgt said by iansltx :Customers' IPs wouldn't change while they're shopping servers for a better result. You are basing that statement on what? When an IP lease or PPPoE session expires, it expires.
About SpeedMatters, 300 Mbit to one server and 45 to the other are NOT enough to give accurate speed test results, particularly if the servers are only homed into one network, and I'm betting that the 45 Mbit server was. Considering you don't know the Speedmatters setup, trying to make arguments like this one is pointless.
Compare this with places like Data393 where they have multi-gigabit links available and you'll see that Speedmatters will have an obvious bias to the lower end on speeds. Actually, you can't make that assumption based on the information you have. There are far too many assumptions that have to be made.
Also, if Speedmatters had only two servers for speed tests overall, versus a few dozen that speedtest.net has (through various providers) then if they had enough tests to get "accurate" results the servers woul be too overloaded to give accurate results. How many is enough tests? You assume that you have to have enough tests that Speedmatters servers would be overloaded. Statistics says otherwise.
Also, are you saying that no trends can be taken from 400 MILLION tests, a lot of which are in the US, and that Speedmatters' number of tests is valuable for trending information though the same number of tests is taken by Speedtest.net every 1.5 hours or so? I don't buy it. You don't buy it because you don't know how to digest, process and interpret the data that is being present by either Speedmatters OR Speedtest.net. Neither dataset it very good, period. Trends can be taken, but because of the lack of control that Speedtest.net has over test servers, sites and the connectivity (there is no standard setup), their data has more issues. The Speedmatters setup is uniform and is less affected by site variability. If that concept escapes you, there is no reason to proceed since you've already made your mind up and won't change it, regardless of the data and reasons presented.
How about using BBR's speed test results, does that work better for ya? Even that data is suspect since the connectivity and setup for each server varies. | |
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NetAdmin
CCNA
join:2008-05-22
| Re: Old data and biased source - the CWA who hate telecom mgt said by iansltx :Go flame somewhere else. Maybe take a look at an XKCD comic or two. Clearly you need to learn what a flame is...  | |
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NetAdmin
CCNA
join:2008-05-22
| Re: Old data and biased source - the CWA who hate telecom mgt said by iansltx :Oh, and Data393 DOES have multiple gigabits of connectivity to the internet. Their website says so. Seeing as how they're a colocation\server facility I wouldn't be one to doubt that. So no, that "assumption" is not borne out. Actually, yes there are still plenty of assumptions... What connectivity to their providers core network does the server have? What types of tweaks have been performed to Apache to improve performance that affect the validity of speedtests have been made? And those are just two you have to know before you can trust the reliability of the data you are presented with.
You can believe that the Speedtest.net tests are somehow more scientific or better than Speedmatters, but that is anything but true. The fact is, Speedtest.net data is based on non-uniform setups that aren't controlled by one group of people, ergo are not better than a server that may be overloaded. Period. | |
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