Measuring Internet Bandwidth?

[Overcklockalypse]

Is there any way I can measure the service I am getting from my ISP and compare it to what they are telling me I'm paying for? I tried the CNet bandwidth meter and it rated me at 768kb/s. Is this test accurrate? Is there a reason I'm paying for 10mb service and only getting download speeds near 1mb/s at best? Is there something lost in translation and advertisement? Is there anything else I can do to accurately measure this?

 

[manojgj]

check you speed from this site

http://www.speedtest.net/

usually download speed are calculated by your broadbandspeed/8 (10240/0= 1280 kb/s will be you download speed)
whats to download speed allotted for your broadband plan

 

[gtvr]

Yes, need to make sure of capital vs lower case designations.

10Mb = 1.25MB / sec. So if you're paying for 10 (max) Mb and getting 768Kb you're doing OK. 768kb would be more like DSL speeds though.

If you're on cable modem, your bandwidth can be affected by what your neighbors are doing on the net. Try it at a few different times of the day for comparison.

 

[Kewlx25]

Yes, need to make sure of capital vs lower case designations.

10Mb = 1.25MB / sec. So if you're paying for 10 (max) Mb and getting 768Kb you're doing OK. 768kb would be more like DSL speeds though.

If you're on cable modem, your bandwidth can be affected by what your neighbors are doing on the net. Try it at a few different times of the day for comparison.

it's only an issue for cable if they oversubscribe. Most of the bottleneck is going to be ISP<->Internet and not Home<->ISP.

 

[Overcklockalypse]

Ya I've heard stories from my teachers about our ISP over subscribing. However, they are the only high speed choice for most of my region. Kinda funny that even with a monopoly they still can't make it out of the red. I have gotten download speeds close to 1.5MB/sec but only for a few seconds. Is there anything I can do to make my speeds stay more constant?

 

[Overcklockalypse]

Yes, need to make sure of capital vs lower case designations..

Are you referring to me saying kb? Sorry I just kinda assumed in context that it would mean bytes not bits.

 

[gtvr]

Are you referring to me saying kb? Sorry I just kinda assumed in context that it would mean bytes not bits.

it's the B that makes a difference being capitalized. You may be right, but I just wanted to make sure / rule out that being an issue.

kB not = kb.

 

[Overcklockalypse]

Ya sorry about that, my teachers always told me never to make assumptions. lol Anyway, would changing my QoS affect download speeds at all, make them more steady? From what little reading I've done on it you can allot bandwidth to certain programs or devices. This would make sense to me because there are two computers on my personal LAN. Do they fight each other for bandwidth? I haven't been able to find the QoS settings on my router so I can't really play with it at the moment.

 

[gtvr]

QoS is probably not on a consumer level router. I've used it before in the context of running VOIP over a WAN. You have a narrow path to the remote office, you don't want your voice conversations getting killed by someone copying a big file, so you give priority (to a point) to voice traffic.

I'm not sure if you need it on both ends of the communication as well, for example your ISP would need to support it across their infrastructure.

 

[Overcklockalypse]

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