Metropol

So how did people do? It's a bit a of a shit speed test, not least because it looks like it only does one download and doesn't have any guidelines about how to lower your network load before doing it. Nonetheless, on this lovely JaNET connection at work it gives me 21.3mbps (yes, apparently millibits per second). I'm also deeply angered by the fact that, on its very slow-to-change map of results, they have two nearly indistinguishable yellow colours to denote different speed ranges. Tsk.

I got 1.6 Mpbs. Not sure what that really means to be honest...

It's rubbish.

I did it 5 times over the course of a minute and got results which varied from 2.3 to 4.5 Mbps.

Other broadband test sites give me 4.5 to 6 Mbps.

I'm likely to change to O2 Broadband at the end of the month as they're offering a 16Mbps connection for less than half the price BT is charging for an 8Mbps one.

1.4Mbps which isn't too bad given that's on the other side of the world and we're connected to the exchange by a glorified piece of fishing line via Adelaide.

"At this speed it would take you less than a minute to download a 4 minute song and about 30 minutes to download a half hour TV programme."

Not quite.

marksi wrote:It's rubbish.

I did it 5 times over the course of a minute and got results which varied from 2.3 to 4.5 Mbps.

Other broadband test sites give me 4.5 to 6 Mbps.

I find this one tends to be quite reliable..from there I got:

speedtest.net suggests my connection is much better to the Faroe Islands than to Maidenhead or Dublin.

I also don't really understand the need for a survey to tell us that people in highly populated areas have access to more and higher speed services. The former is just business sense - you obviously won't want to waste money rolling out infrastructure to places where you won't see a decent return because there are so few people, and the latter is just physics - most phone exchanges are in towns and I suspect that even barcode understands the signal degradation with distance thing. It's hardly ground breaking journalism.

Hmph, wonder why FTTH isn't as big as it should be here then I remember how the vast majority of people are having to go through archaic copper bundles.

As for this test, the BBC is generally not to be relied on for tech reporting and most know that, only have to look as far as Click. The test seems to be more to do with a trial comment system they've got going, easiest way to do a live beta of it is on something like this. The subject matter is immaterial, it's the rest they care about.

I do like that they've started at least trying to stream the news channel in flash instead of horrible Realplayer. Admittedly the audio is shite and the thing keeps stalling but it's a start.

I think you might be wrong nini, they just plugged the speed test on the news. Ugh.

Sput wrote:I think you might be wrong nini, they just plugged the speed test on the news. Ugh.

That's because that's a separate survey conducted by Think Broadband for them, the other one's not exactly for shits and giggles either but is very much just something for them to test for their Have Your Say section and part of a wider debate they're having on our laughable speeds.

Where's my 50Mb parallel up/down connection, eh?