Testing Internet Speeds and Capacity

Mailman List Mirror (Read Only)
1

Hi,

how does one truly test internet speeds provided by your provider.

Speed test sits give different results that one provided by the provider.

Regards,
Shake

2

Speedtest sites (speedtest.net, ndt.anl.gov, etc) or your own tests:

http://www.google.com/search?q=nanog+iperf

3

There was a thread on speed testing a little while back.

http://www.merit.edu/mail.archives/nanog/msg01842.html

Regards,
Andrew Cox
AccessPlus HNA

shake righa wrote:

4

Speedtest.net now have their mini speedtest which you can download and put
on your servers and then test their speed via your browser.

5

shake righa wrote:

Hi,

how does one truly test internet speeds provided by your provider.

Speed test sits give different results that one provided by the provider.

Regards,
Shake

Nice ISP's will put speed test software on their backbone so you can test the speed of your circuit to the backbone.

Remember that the speed your provider quotes you is probably the full throughput of the circuit. Some circuits, such as DSL ones, will read up to 15% slower due to ATM circuit overhead.

6

The tools such as iperf need some level of expertise to use.
some end users lack this level of expertise.
are there any tools simply for end users to use that can accomplish the same
task?\

Regards,
Shake Righa

7

Hi,

how does one truly test internet speeds provided by your provider.

I am going to go back to your original question and ask, for what purpose ?

Speed test sits give different results that one provided by the provider.

Could well be. Speed tests for one purpose (say, TCP web) may be largely irrelevant for other purposes (say, UDP video).

If it really matters - i.e., if you have an application or use case or customer where speed is crucial, then test it using that
application, or find a test that mimics that application.

If you care about interpreting your tests, you might start here

http://shlang.com/writing/tcp-perf.html

Regards
Marshall