How Do I Monitor Internet Connection Speed?

self | 3/24/02 | lafroste

[lafroste]

My wife and I have come to suspect that our cable modem (high bandwidth) internet connection is not nearly as fast as our ISP (Road Runner) has claimed. We are looking for software that can monitor and report data transfer speed. My wife said she had heard of such a software but can't remember its name or where to get it. Anyone know about this? Thanks,

lafroste

[Leclair10]

Hey lafroste having had the experience of troubleshooting dsl modems for a pretty big dsl company a little while back I can tell you two things 1 the sales people lie to make the sale and 2 make sure your contract guarenteed a certain connection speed if it didn't then it might have just guarenteed the connection and not an actual speed certain things come into play with dsl connections the first one being how close you are to the actual server find out from the local tech support how close your server is as anything outside 12,500 ft from your server your signal will be weaker anything past 17,500 ft and you won't get any signal, if your determined to have a safe distance get a reading on your connection speed at dsl reports or pcpitstop if your connection is really slow say constantly under 200 kps then you've got line issues with your connection and will need to talk to tech support to set up a truck roll to your house or to have someone from roadrunner check the main server addresses to your house if you know how to ping addresses(check those speeds) this is a great way to ckeck things I hope I helped.

[billbears]

mark bump

[chaosagent]

One thing to remember when you are monitoring your speed from different sites is that you are also limited by the bandwidth of the site you are testing. If it's a slow or bottlenecked server, you will always be slow no matter what your connection speed is.

This is why it's important to use something like www.dslreports.com since they have several hi-speed nodes to test from.

Remember your actual speed is only as fast as the slowest speed between you and the website.

[LibWhacker]

Just realized there is no link on DSLReports' homepage to their speed test! Sheesh! Click here to go directly to their speed test page, and here to get to their tweak test. :-)

[chains]

    BBMonitor allows you to test your Internet speed with the most accurate results by allowing you much more control. When doing an "Online test", your speed is determined and limited by many of things as in;

1) The speed of the online test's server
2) The number of hops to get from point A to B
3) The packet size
4) Your internet speed
5) The amount of people simultaneously running the same online test
6) The distance the data has to travel
7) The online test's servers latency
8) The online test's servers down time

So, as you can see, trying to get accurate results from an online test is almost impossible. With BBMonitor you can eliminate all these problems and you can test 24 hours a day allowing you to test for intermittent down times or connection slowing.

    To test your internet connection accurately with BBMonitor all you have to do is start downloading the largest files that you can find (in excess of 100MB) from as many different download servers as you can find. You can also start many different Streaming Video and or Streaming Radio, which are constant streams of data. The object is to continually download as much as your connection will handle for as long as you prefer to max out your bandwidth from many different servers, therefore proving irrefutably your maximum Internet speed.

You can get BBMonitor from here: http://www.absolutefuturity.com/BBMonitor.htm

    BBMonitor also stores all your speed data into a database on your computer, so you can show this data to your ISP to get them to fix your connection with your irrefutable evidence. You can even use the data to create charts and graphs.

    It has worked wonders for me. Excellent program. I highly reccomend it!

[lafroste]

Thanks for your reply, but I would like to know one thing: What prompted you to post a response to a thread that was over four years old? Just curious, and thanks for the info. FReepers always come through, even if it takes a while...

:)

[chains]

I found this page during a search and figured that the information that I found would help other people also.

[roaddog727]

One thing you need to remember about cable modem: It is shared media bandwidth.

That means that everyone who is attached to the provisioning node of your particular neighborhood shares the entire capability of cable bandwidth.

In simpler terms, if the Provisioning node is rated at 100MBPS, and 10 people are connected to this node, they will effectively each have 10MBPS capability.

The more folks connected at any given time, the lower your bandwidth.

You will likely notice that at 0500hrs, the cablemodem zooms. Then try connecting around 0700/0730hrs and it slows to a crawl. That's because everyone is logging on to check e-mail.

[Paul R.]

Hi, all,

This thread came up right away when I did a Google search for “monitor internet connection speed”. So, here I am, 6 years later, on this thread! Lot’s of good info., but, is any of the above a bit dated (ie., sites to go to, etc.)?

Separately (high up on Google) I tried CNET’s “Bandwidth Meter Online Test” which works even for my current dialup service (budget constraints). Anyone have an idea how accurate the CNET test is? The result seems reasonable: My isp displays the connection speed when I log on - in this case I’ve been on 1 1/2 hrs - showing a speed of 52,000 bps, and CNET reports 39k.

More important, I am looking at a possible work from home job, one requirement of which is that I have at least 256kbps upload speed.

1) How do I test upload speed if I get DSL?

2) We are in a rural area: The ONLY service provider is the local teleco. Their service disclaimer states:
“With all the DSL packages, the advertised speeds are a best effort, not a guarantee. Many environmental issues beyond the control of ABCXYZ Internet can affect the advertised speed.”

I’m going to be in a pickle if I take this job and then the ISP does not deliver... The pay is not that great & no way can we afford some sort of “gamer” speed package (which the teleco says IS available at our address - which makes me think the lines out here must be ok / distance to the gateway not too far??)

Comments?

Thanks!

[Paul R.]

Oh, to add: The at home job requires a hard wired connection (phone and Internet). So cable and satellite isp’s are out. There’s no cable service out here anyway.

[McGruff]

Go to SPEEDTEST.NET and select "Test using recommended server". After the test runs it brings up a results page like.

[Uri’el-2012]

Go to SPEEDTEST.NET

This is the Gold Standard !

[roaddog727]

DSL’s the way to go. Typically DSL will run around 768KB on download and 256KB on upload.

This should be sufficient, unless you are pushing/pulling big files - like Powerpoint stuff and imagery. If you are moving just docs - like word, Excel and .pdf, the above will be more than adequate for your needs.

[Paul R.]

Hi, roaddog,

Thanks for the reply.

Oddly, the local teleco’s plans go like this (pasted from their website):

Dial-up Internet $15.95 Unlimited time w/1 e-mail acct.

DSL Residential Lite $34.90 320kbps download/128kbps upload
DSL Residential $44.90 768kbps download/128kbps upload
DSL Residential Fast* $54.90 1.5Mbps download/512kbps upload
DSL Residential Gamer* $64.90 3.0Mbps download/768kbps upload

DSL Business Lite $54.90 320kbps download/128kbps upload
DSL Business $74.90 768kbps download/256kbps upload
DSL Business II* $94.90 1.5Mbps download/512kbps upload
DSL Business III* $114.90 3.0Mbps download/768kbps upload

Static IP Address $5.00
DSL Modem Lease $4.95

The weird thing is that from “DSL Residential Lite” to “DSL Residential” the upload speed does not increase, and for this job I am looking at, a minimum of 256kbps upload speed is required. So, that’d force me into a $55/mo. (plus taxes) plan, and that is REALLY pushing the budget.

Anyway, my question remains - how to test upload speed?

[roaddog727]

Best way I know how to do that is to hang a network traffic analysis tool on your home router. How do you plan to connect you home sysytem to your DSL modem? Straight connection via CAT 5 cable or are you going to go DSL modem to wireless router? I would recommend getting a wireless router (Linksys makes excellent ones and are suppored by Cisco and come with some good tools).

I’ll poke around on my wireless router tonight and get back to you on any tools I find regariding traffic speeds.

[Kirky]

I was hoping by now you would have posted the tools you said you were going to post :) The tool I have been using recently is Speed Test Pro and it has worked great for me as it monitors my maximum Internet speed on a regular basis automatically. However I want to start using my own website as the place to download files from and I cannot figure out how to do it. I have placed the code in one of my pages but it cannot seen to find it. Has anyone used this Speed Test before? Does anyone know how to set it up correctly on a website? My websites server is very close to where I live so I think it would give me the most accurate results.

[don-o]

read later

[roaddog727]

I suspect I had a brain cramp and completely got occupied with other stuff......... LOL

But in answer to your question, the speedtest tool works ok. but still, you would want an analysis tool. My recommendation here would be for Wireshark. It’s freeware and can be loaded on your PC.

Here’s some info on it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireshark
http://www.wireshark.org/download.html

[Paul R.]

Oh, well, thanks for the eventual response! I’d forgotten all about it as I started using Speedtest (recommendation from the ISP when they installed the DSP service.) However, Wireshark looks very interesting - thanks for the link!