FCC releases Internet speed test tool
This might be useful to some. Article : http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62B08720100312 site : http://www.broadband.gov/ It requires giving your address. Regards Marshall
If you have fios please don't use this, if you have relatives with dial, make them use it :) - Jared On Mar 12, 2010, at 8:43 AM, Marshall Eubanks wrote:
This might be useful to some.
Article :
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62B08720100312
site :
It requires giving your address.
Regards Marshall
i suspect the bandwidth tests are a bit latency sensitive
It requires giving your address.
did not really like a tokyo postal code randy
Marshall Eubanks wrote:
;; ANSWER SECTION: www.broadband.gov. 86400 IN A 4.21.126.148 www.broadband.gov. 86400 IN RRSIG A 7 3 86400 20100309192609 ( 20091209192609 46640 broadband.gov. [...] ) Expired signatures... zone won't validate. AlanC
This might be useful to some.
Article :
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62B08720100312
site :
It requires giving your address.
Correction: it _requires_ Java. It _asks_ for your address. It seems like it'd work fine if you gave it your neighbor's address. :-) I noted that I got wildly varying numbers on a laptop and an iPhone (there is also an iPhone app) and the iPhone app doesn't ask for an address. Both on the same wifi, and the numbers were off by a lot. ... JG -- Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net "We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN) With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples.
I noted that I got wildly varying numbers on a laptop and an iPhone (there is also an iPhone app) and the iPhone app doesn't ask for an address. Both on the same wifi and connection, and the numbers were off by a lot.
And I meant to include examples, but fingers committed the message before I could stop 'em. Sorry. PC/mLab: Download speed: 4150kbps Upload speed: 2364kpbs PC/Ookla: Download speed: 5044kbps Upload speed: 1120Kbps iPhone: Download speed: 1.75Mbps Upload speed: 0.23Mbps I've gotten strange stuff each time I've tried their tests. I particularly like the factor of 10 difference in upload speeds. ... JG -- Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net "We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN) With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples.
On Fri, 12 Mar 2010, Joe Greco wrote:
I've gotten strange stuff each time I've tried their tests. I particularly like the factor of 10 difference in upload speeds.
The FCC is probably doing this because US providers generally don't release actual bandwidth, speeds or latency numbers their consumer customers get. Advertised numbers often don't mean anything. If providers want to release better data, it might help the FCC understand the current environment. Some US providers have published data for their business customer connections and backbones.
On Fri, 12 Mar 2010, Joe Greco wrote:
I've gotten strange stuff each time I've tried their tests. I particularly like the factor of 10 difference in upload speeds.
The FCC is probably doing this because US providers generally don't release actual bandwidth, speeds or latency numbers their consumer customers get.
I understand the point behind the test.
Advertised numbers often don't mean anything. If providers want to release better data, it might help the FCC understand the current environment.
Some US providers have published data for their business customer connections and backbones.
I realize that a high level of participation could result in the FCC gaining a more complete understanding of broadband penetration, and specific areas where there are problems. However, I have some reservations as to whether or not the FCC will be able to get enough people to participate in this to be able to generate a meaningful dataset. Further, major inconsistencies such as what I just pointed out brings into question the validity of the test, and therefore the value. I am not that concerned about the difference between 4Mbps and 5Mbps, but when there's an order of magnitude difference involved... on the same connection... I would guess, hopefully correctly, that Speedtest.net, Akamai, and others already have a good handle on broadband speeds, and it seems to me that the FCC could get a much more thorough picture of per-ISP performance (which of course isn't street-level) simply by getting these guys to summarize their results. As such, the only real value I see the FCC tool offering is the potential for visibility into things such as DSL speed/distance limitations, but in order for that to be meaningful, you'd have to get a lot of people to run the test. Which brings us back to ... I'm not entirely sure that this is a useful strategy. ... JG -- Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net "We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN) With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples.
On 3/12/2010 08:43, Joe Greco wrote:
As such, the only real value I see the FCC tool offering is the potential for visibility into things such as DSL speed/distance limitations, but in order for that to be meaningful, you'd have to get a lot of people to run the test.
Which brings us back to ... I'm not entirely sure that this is a useful strategy.
Look at the legislation under which it was implemented. Look at the political agenda that appears to be obvious to me. Look at the history of governments collection, "analysis", and use of data. Now guess with me which findings have been pre-ordained and need only some data to be filtered, adjusted (see weather data and NOAA's and NASA's manipulation of it), and finally guess with me what regulation will be justified by and mandated based on the findings. -- "Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have." Remember: The Ark was built by amateurs, the Titanic by professionals. Requiescas in pace o email Ex turpi causa non oritur actio Eppure si rinfresca ICBM Targeting Information: http://tinyurl.com/4sqczs http://tinyurl.com/7tp8ml
I could imagine that the FCC sees it as a data source. On Mar 12, 2010, at 6:34 AM, Sean Donelan wrote:
On Fri, 12 Mar 2010, Joe Greco wrote:
I've gotten strange stuff each time I've tried their tests. I particularly like the factor of 10 difference in upload speeds.
The FCC is probably doing this because US providers generally don't release actual bandwidth, speeds or latency numbers their consumer customers get. Advertised numbers often don't mean anything. If providers want to release better data, it might help the FCC understand the current environment.
Some US providers have published data for their business customer connections and backbones.
Joe Greco wrote:
I've gotten strange stuff each time I've tried their tests. I particularly like the factor of 10 difference in upload speeds.
... JG
Yeah...these test are algorithm based and rarely accurate! On our 100Mbps Internet connection (which I know handles 100Mbps) best I could get is 10Mbps down and 14Mbps up. Wish someone would come up with a much better mouse trap. The only test I've ever found to be fairly accurate is iperf or a simple FTP test.
There are obviously some variables, buffering or something out there since download speeds do not seem to be very consistent running the tools several times. I tested three times each with the two engines.
From SATX, TWC/RR:
Ookla Download Speed 24408 28494 22662 Kbps Upload Speed 483 492 493 Kbps Latency 18 18 18 ms Jitter 2 2 2 ms MLAB Download Speed 16854 17630 15780 Kbps Upload Speed 487 493 493 Kbps Latency 18 17 17 ms Jitter 2 1 1 ms Regards Jorge
Joe Greco wrote:
Correction: it _requires_ Java. It _asks_ for your address. It seems like it'd work fine if you gave it your neighbor's address. :-)
I noted that I got wildly varying numbers on a laptop and an iPhone (there is also an iPhone app) and the iPhone app doesn't ask for an address. Both on the same wifi, and the numbers were off by a lot.
... JG
INSTEAD of using the FCC provided app, one 'could' always use OOKLA and M-LAB directly. The following links may prove to be more helpful to some. http://demo.ookla.com/linequality/ *and * http://npad.iupui.lax01.measurement-lab.org:8000/ (Choose the closest orig/term point to you from: http://www.measurementlab.net/measurement-lab-tools#npad ) Both sites present varying granularity.. It goes without saying that one should NOT send one's mother/grandmother to the NPAD site. Pete (Peter Löthberg) being the exception here..... O:-) Best, Robert. --
So have other people noticed that the Ookla/Speedtest.net/Speakeasy Bandwidth test often comes up VERY short on upload bandwidth results for anything other than residential-grade asymmetrical services? We often get complaints from customers saying "I'm not getting the upload bandwidth I'm paying for", and when we ask what they are using to determine this, the answer is almost always either Speakeasy or Speedtest.net. We certainly don't depend on or recommend these sites to customers (we have our own internal tools and usually recommend FTP or iperf), but everyone who deems themselves semi-knowledgeable seems to find their way there anyway. Do these sites simply not have the downstream bandwidth to handle the upload tests? If thats the case I'd really like to see the admins add a disclaimer of some form directly to the site. Thanks, -Scott -----Original Message----- From: Robert Mathews (OSIA) [mailto:mathews@hawaii.edu] Sent: Friday, March 12, 2010 10:32 AM To: North American Network Operators Group Subject: Re: FCC releases Internet speed test tool Joe Greco wrote:
Correction: it _requires_ Java. It _asks_ for your address. It seems like it'd work fine if you gave it your neighbor's address. :-)
I noted that I got wildly varying numbers on a laptop and an iPhone (there is also an iPhone app) and the iPhone app doesn't ask for an address. Both on the same wifi, and the numbers were off by a lot.
... JG
INSTEAD of using the FCC provided app, one 'could' always use OOKLA and M-LAB directly. The following links may prove to be more helpful to some. http://demo.ookla.com/linequality/ *and * http://npad.iupui.lax01.measurement-lab.org:8000/ (Choose the closest orig/term point to you from: http://www.measurementlab.net/measurement-lab-tools#npad ) Both sites present varying granularity.. It goes without saying that one should NOT send one's mother/grandmother to the NPAD site. Pete (Peter Löthberg) being the exception here..... O:-) Best, Robert. --
Scott Berkman wrote:
So have other people noticed that the Ookla/Speedtest.net/Speakeasy Bandwidth test often comes up VERY short on upload bandwidth results for anything other than residential-grade asymmetrical services?
The question to consider are: are JAVA based "speed" testers reliable? What are the caveats? Nevertheless, they have - over time, become 'popular' among users, and your average 'cable guy,' to at least the first 2 tiers of service tech personnel at ISPs who are often relegated to diagnosing why "grandma's" Internet connection is slow.... Best, Robert. --
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 3/12/2010 11:26 AM, Scott Berkman wrote:
So have other people noticed that the Ookla/Speedtest.net/Speakeasy Bandwidth test often comes up VERY short on upload bandwidth results for anything other than residential-grade asymmetrical services?
We often get complaints from customers saying "I'm not getting the upload bandwidth I'm paying for", and when we ask what they are using to determine this, the answer is almost always either Speakeasy or Speedtest.net.
We certainly don't depend on or recommend these sites to customers (we have our own internal tools and usually recommend FTP or iperf), but everyone who deems themselves semi-knowledgeable seems to find their way there anyway. Do these sites simply not have the downstream bandwidth to handle the upload tests? If that?s the case I'd really like to see the admins add a disclaimer of some form directly to the site.
Thanks,
-Scott
I'm seeing big disparity between upload and download speeds. I had the same thought as to the testing platform expecting asymmetrical speeds typical of a residential link. Why didn't they go with NDT? -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAkuadI0ACgkQQr/gMVyFYyT5ywCfTjlYgTs9qV3AaXHsHX3wkm15 QJYAoJoSxNzDqrdX86MoLNB+gObbhZ9/ =qGyL -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On 3/12/2010 11:26 AM, Scott Berkman wrote: So have other people noticed that the Ookla/Speedtest.net/Speakeasy Bandwidth test often comes up VERY short on upload bandwidth results for anything other than residential-grade asymmetrical services?
As we heard in Austin, residential (or at least end-user) systems are the primary focus of the FCC's rule-making: http://riskman.typepad.com/peerflow/2010/02/nprm-diagram-2-scope-of-rules.ht... -jsq
Anybody who wants to do it better, here's your chance: https://www.fbo.gov/utils/view?id=cb712eb3ef384ebe25bfbf6b0a5dfa16 -jsq
On Fri, 12 Mar 2010, John S. Quarterman wrote:
Anybody who wants to do it better, here's your chance:
https://www.fbo.gov/utils/view?id=cb712eb3ef384ebe25bfbf6b0a5dfa16
Seems they'd be better off just gathering data from existing speedtest networks. But speed isn't the only issue they should be looking at. If the government really wants to make significant, long-term improvements to the national network infrastructure, it also needs to be encouraging deployment of multicast and IPv6 to the end-user. Antonio Querubin 808-545-5282 x3003 e-mail/xmpp: tony@lava.net
On Fri, 12 Mar 2010, John S. Quarterman wrote:
Anybody who wants to do it better, here's your chance:
https://www.fbo.gov/utils/view?id=cb712eb3ef384ebe25bfbf6b0a5dfa16
Hmm, although it lists a number of FAR clauses but it seems none of them reference the new requirements for IPv6: http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/E9-28931.htm Antonio Querubin 808-545-5282 x3003 e-mail/xmpp: tony@lava.net
On 12/03/10 11:26 -0500, Scott Berkman wrote:
So have other people noticed that the Ookla/Speedtest.net/Speakeasy Bandwidth test often comes up VERY short on upload bandwidth results for anything other than residential-grade asymmetrical services?
We often get complaints from customers saying "I'm not getting the upload bandwidth I'm paying for", and when we ask what they are using to determine this, the answer is almost always either Speakeasy or Speedtest.net.
We certainly don't depend on or recommend these sites to customers (we have our own internal tools and usually recommend FTP or iperf), but everyone who deems themselves semi-knowledgeable seems to find their way there anyway. Do these sites simply not have the downstream bandwidth to handle the upload tests? If thats the case I'd really like to see the admins add a disclaimer of some form directly to the site.
We decided to spend the money to install a local Ookla speed test site a couple of years ago and have been happy with the decision: 1) Local customers who run the speed test get much more accurate readings than with what we were previously using, which was either javascript based, or java based. The Ookla software we're running is flash based, which a very high number of our users already have installed. 2) It gets placed on the main speedtest.net map. When our customers go to speedtest.net to test their speeds, the default test location they get is our own site, and they get accurate results. 3) When customers from local competitors go to speedtest.net, they get defaulted to our test location, and get less than accurate readings (since they are not on our local network) and get artificially depressed results, which is a positive for us. On a side note, we've tried to sign up for Ookla's pingtest.net, but haven't gotten any responses from them about it. Has anyone else had any success signing up for it? -- Dan White
There is definitely something very broken in the gov't version of the speedtest.net application. It seems very BW constrained. I can get great results to a variety of ookla sites via test points across the US, but the government one is always horrible. We host both a pingtest and speedtest.net site, and provided you give it enough BW, it's reasonably accurate for connections up to around 50 Mbps.. Peter Kranz
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256 On Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 08:43:22AM -0500, Marshall Eubanks wrote:
[ ... ] http://www.broadband.gov/
If you can't get there, check DNSSEC first.... Lame server or bad signature: Mar 12 08:57:57 mx1 named[18363]: no valid KEY resolving 'www.broadband.gov/A/IN': 192.104.54.4#53 I'll send e-mail to dns-admin-at-fcc.gov, but that's probably a black hole. If anyone has a contact at fcc.gov, please let them know. Nate Itkin -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux) iQEcBAEBCAAGBQJLmpS5AAoJEDCWEYiadXeZqOsH/j8zsyQJHprWW4B2Zy5cdomb mrMbfgIO6uCYPS6CFTEzmFYY9ggTnBTl6UR3E5X73riBlp+mocM+VP0l9J3LB90Y uzVjItZEpnXjZ1ZfuneLXH9MisU5LXRfWMgTNU/vW1UtTW9pNGqp41eQp7/7Ojg7 r9c7pXwhga1UEpkORV/4fbDUXy8liI5CPaybF9YkePcUFhUAPLC1PqibgUPcQ4Ob L3H3jq6c2XP/bK4c7k/tJ39JO02EsaR7JrOriHFrRqN/NfAbuhnLiJpgnEWBHmOL 9ilqWeVs0AVimIgM7fdUelooWUt2NGzOtuHP1UcdyB4ADFazwJI9N09IaVvn7l4= =5r1z -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On Mar 12, 2010, at 5:43 AM, Marshall Eubanks wrote:
I'm listening to all this and thinking through the questions the FCC might be asking. I'm also trying to do a somewhat-controlled test, which I'll give you the first several samples of. See attached. I picked up your note at ~7:10 PST this morning and set up some timed commands to remind myself to try this out once an hour at a few minutes before my various meetings start. I'm testing speakeasy against speedtest against the two broadband.gov engines, plus pingtest just for fun. I am of course at work today, woking from home. For the record, I am a Cox Business subscriber, and my contract is 2 MBPS down and 384 KBPS up. That implies I'm not going see tens of MBPS, and I would be surprised if the numbers were significantly different than advertised as I am by definition paying more money for less service. Some of the tests will run in parallel with my daily workload, and I'll try to keep that straight. What may impinge is mail downloads, which happen under the hood and aren't necessarily visible at the time I initiate a test. An observation on the various comments that "going to a test service operated somewhere other than my POP is a dumb idea": it depends on what you're measuring. If you're measuring, as I imagine those commentators are, what bit rate is available on the link between the residential subscriber and the ISP and therefore whether the contract is being met, the point is well taken. If the point is "what is a reasonable expectation of bandwidth when accessing various things on the Internet", the ISP's internal connectivity, connectivity to its upstream, and to its peers is also relevant - and from an FCC Net Neutrality perspective pretty important. A fairly common report several years ago was that on DSL networks one might get a high rate through the very last mile but often got mere tens of KBPS through the back end network, and DSL marketing made the same comment about Cable Modem networks. When I buy a certain rate from an ISP, the point is not to talk with the ISP at that rate; the point is to be able to do what I do, such as running a VPN across <ISP> and <upstream> to/from <company>, or access content on the web. Another observation: when a subscriber buys a bit rate, the bit rate includes IP headers, link layer overhead, etc. If I use FTP to test my rate, it is measuring the rate at which TCP can deliver user data, which is to say that it omits the TCP, IP, and link layer overheads, which are on the order of 3-4% of the bandwidth. If I were running one of these tests over a circuit switch link such as a T-1, it would not measure that it was delivering 1.544 MBPS plus or minus 75 ppm; it would measure somewhat less considering both physical layer overheads (2/193 gets lost out of a T-1 frame) and TCP/IP overheads. What I have seen so far this morning is that speakeasy, speedtest, and the two broadband.gov sites come up with about the same numbers, modulo obvious issues of being different tests at slightly different times. The one difference there is with broadband.gov/MLAB: it seems to measure my upload rate at about half of contract rate the first time I test it, and then measure something approximating the contract if I repeat the test. No idea what that really means - if it randomly was high and low I could argue that it is a capacity-at-tester or "did POP download email?" issue, but since it always the first test that is low it suggests something relevant to the sequence.
participants (18)
-
Alan Clegg -
Andrew Gallo -
Antonio Querubin -
Bret Clark -
Dan White -
Fred Baker -
Jared Mauch -
Joe Greco -
John S. Quarterman -
Jorge Amodio -
Larry Sheldon -
Marshall Eubanks -
Nate Itkin -
Peter Kranz -
Randy Bush -
Robert Mathews (OSIA) -
Scott Berkman -
Sean Donelan