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Packeteers
Premium Member
join:2005-06-18
Forest Hills, NY

Packeteers

Premium Member

Ookla's a Joke

I use testmy.net which is a real world test.
Ookla's bought and paid for by the ISP's
so it's results are usually biased when run
locally off the ISP's own network duh.
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx

Member

The speedtest servers I use aren't on my ISP's network.

Also, Testmy.net might as well be on-net work TWC and Comcast; they use SoftLayer, and SoftLayer paid-peers with both of those companies, as well as others. I use the SoftLayer based Ookla test more often than not, so it's really six of one, half dozen of the other.

djrobx
Premium Member
join:2000-05-31
Reno, NV

djrobx to Packeteers

Premium Member

to Packeteers
Testmy.net isn't perfect either. It used to incorrectly show me getting 80mbps on my 50mbps time warner connection regularly. These days it often shows me getting slower than speeds I'm getting real-world. Ookla gives me more consistent results, and that's likely because there are more servers to pick from.

I'm sure ISPs prioritize traffic to Ookla and other popular speed test sites. Thats actually OK with me, I'm usually using such tools to identify the maximum possible real-world speed of my connection. When even those "optimized" tests can't get up to what I'm paying for, there's usually a problem somewhere that I need to identify. A good example is a user who received the new 300mbps Time Warner Max speeds - Ookla was showing inconsistent results of ~200mbps through his router. It turns out his router couldn't handle the new speeds, once he replaced it, he's getting the expected 324mbps.

A speed test to say, NY from LA is an interesting metric of cross-country performance, but isn't terribly useful because there's not much I can do about it if it's not good, and it doesn't really tell me if my local network gear is performing well or not.

Ookla currently shows me getting 117mbps on my TWC connection, and in fact, I see ~14MB/sec downloads from real web sites fairly regularly.

Packeteers
Premium Member
join:2005-06-18
Forest Hills, NY
Asus RT-AC3100
(Software) Asuswrt-Merlin

Packeteers

Premium Member

said by djrobx:

Testmy.net isn't perfect either. It used to incorrectly show me getting 80mbps on my 50mbps time warner connection regularly.

one flaw in testmy is it often reverts to a different regional server, so if you start in CA a few tests later you may be working out of TX, so your results only SEEM to be off.
What I did to fix this random issue, is to make a shortcut to the text I want to take, then add a regional parameter at the end;

&testServer=east

this ensures that all my tests are run out of WashDC which is closest to me in NYC. this also comes in handy when testing my Romania based VPN, where I use testmy.net with a different parameter;

&testServer=euro
AmericanMan
Premium Member
join:2013-12-28
united state

AmericanMan to Packeteers

Premium Member

to Packeteers
Agreed. I find that testmy.net is more accurate to what my real-world download speeds are.

Plus I like how you can set your own speed test size, we have 3G, so being able to choose a speedtest size of 512-768 KB is great.

Packeteers
Premium Member
join:2005-06-18
Forest Hills, NY
Asus RT-AC3100
(Software) Asuswrt-Merlin

Packeteers

Premium Member

said by AmericanMan:

I like how you can set your own speed test size,



for broadband, you will increase accuracy by taking your bandwidth speed and doubling the test size, so for example when I test my 15/1 service, I always use 30mb/2mb test sizes. the test may take longer than Ookla, but any more accurate test will.