Internet Bandwidth Speed Test

[davsv1]

I had a funny one recently, I have adsl2+ through iinet for 7 years and had speed of 6.5-7mbits/sec and was quite happy with that. I did however have a lot of static on my cordless phone. Eventually I got telstra to come and sort the problem of the static so they changed the line and it was clear as a bell, then my adsl went down to .15mbits/sec so I thought it must be a new line problem. I got onto iinet and had a tech sent out to check it for me ,no charge to me unless it was a problem with my setup, which it wasn't of course because it was working fine until the line change. It took the tech 2 minutes to find the problem was in fact my ups was not sending power out the phone line (surge protected) to the modern so the modem had no phone line power, ( it may have been hit by a surge at some time) changed the phone line to bypass the ups and now I get 10mbits/sec. So it was the surge protected ups outlet that was my problem. Still can't work out why it worked fine until the noisy line was fixed. Tech told me always to plug into the first inlet in the building to trouble shoot.

[ameerat42]

Ta davs. No, his UPS only powers the computer and monitor.

[davsv1]

Ta davs. No, his UPS only powers the computer and monitor.

Yep, mine too, but, mine has a surge protected phone line inlet/outlet, that was the culprit, not actual power to the modem. Not suggesting this is the problem your friend has, it was mine though and it made me more aware to look for the not so obvious. The tech tested the voltage in the phone line, I'm not sure what it was though....maybe 5 or 6 volts.

[ameerat42]

OK, I see. I (now that memory returns) recall that when he had his phone as well, he had lots of problems with it, mainly crackling.

(Hmm. Phone line technician, but I wonder who now that he has no phone subscription at all.)
Am.

[Ian Brewster]

Thanks dieselpower for your comments. I am on an Optus Fusion Plan; it's hard to know what speed they promise on that but I get 150 GB upload/download which is fine for me. The site you put us on to tells me crows need to fly 709 m to reach us from the exchange, but electrons need to travel 1.13 km "at an estimated speed of 20,000" kbps (I presume- the units are not stated). So Telstra must have some gremlins in the line!

Ian

[dieselpower]

OK, I see. I (now that memory returns) recall that when he had his phone as well, he had lots of problems with it, mainly crackling.

(Hmm. Phone line technician, but I wonder who now that he has no phone subscription at all.)
Am.

If the phone was scratchy then that will likely be the cause of the poor internet speed.
Given that it's a naked connection the only way to proceed is to call optus. You can't even do a dial tone test for noise, because there won't be one! But it would be worth mentioning the line WAS scratchy.

[dieselpower]

Thanks dieselpower for your comments. I am on an Optus Fusion Plan; it's hard to know what speed they promise on that but I get 150 GB upload/download which is fine for me. The site you put us on to tells me crows need to fly 709 m to reach us from the exchange, but electrons need to travel 1.13 km "at an estimated speed of 20,000" kbps (I presume- the units are not stated). So Telstra must have some gremlins in the line!

Ian

Potentially. It could be that you're getting a good sync rate (ie. the modem connects at close to 20,000kbps) but there's backhaul congestion - not an issue with your line but the number of subscribers using the fat internet pipes into that exchange. Only way to tell is to look at your modems sync reports to see what speed it has attained...

[OzzieTraveller]

G'day am

Just to confuse the issues still more ~ I only have an option of USB wireless followed by 'pot-luck'

At the moment I'm in Forster NSW & I ran the test as follows
Optus Wireless: 5 tests at 1-minute intervals, 6:30-6:35pm ... range was from 0510kbps to 1700, average 1165kbps
Telstra wireless: 5 tests at 1-minute intervals, 6:40-6:45pm ... range was from 2800kbps to 3450, average 3140kbps

Anyone above wanna swap??
Regards, Phil

[rodw]

Connecting my iPad to my Telstra 4g phone gives me this. 23 km from the city and they say they only have 4g within 5 km of the CBD. It is much slower at work near the city so go figure.


I think the 4g dedicated wireless dongles do better than this.

[ameerat42]

Remarkable, Rod. If only they didn't charge like the proverbial wounded bovine. And then like you said, the closer to the CBD...
(Closest to head-scratching icon.)

Actually, what's that "Distance 1250 mi" supposed to signify? I enlarged like mad to see whether there was a decimal point, but...

And let me say that today on the "little netbook" I got 14000KBit/sec. That's three zeros, and that's higher than the theoretical max. Mad!

[arthurking83]

Another thing to note too Am, is the server speed.
Don't take these speed tests too literally.

A better .. read: real world test .. for speed is actually downloading something.

The test site you linked too gives me a max speed of only 10 - 10.5Mbit per sec, but I know my (Optus cable) connection is capable of more than that .. 16 or more Mbit which equates to 2.0 Mbyte per sec download speeds.

I've downloaded Linus DVD(ISO's) and M$ patches and service packs from local servers at close to 2M byte and more.

easy server to check this speed with is the AARNET server, where you can download a copy of Firefox or something as a test.
I know I get over 2Mbyte/s speeds from there.

While this doesn't help with your friend's problem, at least it's a sure way to get truly unrestricted speeds.
The restriction could be the server(unlikely) or the connect to the server somewhere else along the line.

mirror.aarnet link if a google search is too much work!

[dieselpower]

Actually, what's that "Distance 1250 mi" supposed to signify? I enlarged like mad to see whether there was a decimal point, but...

Physical distance to the test server. It's not always accurate though, it's based on where the speedtest site "thinks" the IP address terminates. For Telstra, that's likely to be in Melbourne by the look of this result.

www.speedtest.net is a good test site and I believe it uses multiple streams when doing its testing and is able to max out a connection. I use it daily (work) and it always completely utilises the connections we test (including a previous work place where we had 100Mbps fibre!). Worth a look but my gut feeling is that isn't the issue.

[arthurking83]

That speedtest site gave me 17.7Mbps, whereas the other site linked too earlier only gave me 10.5 (now that's more like it! )
May not be an issue in itself for Am's mate, but is obviously not a great site to use as a speed test.



... where's that bloody NBN!

[ameerat42]

Ta, dp and AK. I know, AK. I do try to download large images sometimes. In this case though, it's not that.
Am.

[Ian Brewster]

- line stats off the modem would be the next port of call to see its sync rate and noise margins. It could be back haul congestion an not a line sync issue at all!

Interesting. How to I get to my modem to see the stats? I am on Windows XP, with ethernet cable to the Netgear N600 wireless router, to which the modem connects by cable from the surge protector then the telephone wall socket. The modem doesn't show up in the Hardware under System, Devices.

Any advice appreciated,

Ian

[Kym]

43230 at work

[William]

Using this one from Dieselpower http://www.speedtest.net/ I got this , Is it OK

[Mark L]

Ian, try the Network and Sharing Center. It should show what connects you and the w.w.w.. Click on it and that connects you to your modem.
Or if you're with Telstra try http://192.168.1.254/ (I do need to learn screen shots!)

[arthurking83]

Interesting. How to I get to my modem to see the stats? .....

If you haven't configured the router in any way (yet) the default location to view your router is at :

http://192.168.0.1/index.htm
(you can copy and paste that web page into your browsers address bar)

**EDIT: OK, I forgot. the above address should be a clickable link to a web page. If you have a Netgear router and is still at default settings it should take you to your router login page. It doesn't link to any external website. Non Netgear users will not be taken to a link of any sort, if they click the link.

I don't have an N600, but all the Negear routers I've had experience with have a default admin page set there.

You can configure it to your preference too.. but there's no point.

You will get a login + password dialogue box pop up too.

(default) user name is admin, and password is ... password <**whoopsies! I won't tell** >
There is a manual for it somewhere and the info you require is in there.
If you haven't accessed any of this previously, the router is possibly still set with all the defaults, and tho it's unlikely some smarty pantz could access your network.. so I'd be getting onto the task of changing password from the default.

The web based admin page is quite easy to navigate, with all the major topics on the LHS in the dark blue/violet column and all peripheral settings within each topic are set in the central white area. The paler blue RHS column contains the information relevant to the topic currently displayed.

There is no one specific way to access your routers individual info... differing models of Netgear routers all have subtle differences in what they display and how each section is worded.

For info relating to performances look for a Router Status(or similar) topic header on the LHS, click it, and in the central white area there may be another radio button to click to open a stats page.

[William]

Ian, try the Network and Sharing Center. It should show what connects you and the w.w.w.. Click on it and that connects you to your modem.
Or if you're with Telstra try http://192.168.1.254/ (I do need to learn screen shots!)

Do you have PS Mark, If so , All I do is hit shift>Printscreen, I then open PS Go to file > new>OK>Ctrl-V and there it is