Leaderboard

Hey all. Just wanted to say a big thank you to the creators and maintainers of testmy.net. I live in Jamaica and we don't have fast or quality internet service here unless you live in the more populated areas. Where I live there are no physical internet connections available so I've had to use fixed wireless options for years. I've been through every single one that's been available and your speed test has helped keep my sanity. Basically all of them have tried to send me to the sites that make them shine and make me look like the crazy unreasonable customer. My current provider just upgraded my package after almost 15 years and wanted me to do daily speed tests to make sure everything was fine. They told me to use openspeedtest.com and I told them I would use testmy.net instead (been using you for years and loving it, THANK YOU again) but they said they wanted to measure jitter as well so I relented. Well, after a while I noticed the connection was acting up and while testmy.net gave me the real world, openspeedtest.com was giving results saying I had full speed and nothing was wrong. To cut a long story short, after 2 months of telling them something was wrong and trying to convince them to use testmy.net instead, they have finally relented and admitted there's a problem on their network. So thank you again to each and every one of you who has and anything to do with this site. Please continue to do what you do and fight for the little guy. Much appreciated.

The most common question that people ask us is why their results here differ from speedtest.net. I want to explain something that may help you understand why this is. According to the Ookla Wiki [updated link] the following is true about your tests taken at speedtest.net... The fastest 10% and slowest 30% of your results are DISCARDED The remaining data is averaged together to determine the final result Throwing away the fastest 10% and slowest 30% of the results in my opinion does not make for an accurate test. Isn't THAT the data that you're here to see? Also note this isn't only true for speedtest.net. Ookla is huge, most of the speed tests online run their software. Source: wiki.ookla.com Multithreading makes your connection look better Ookla speed tests are also multithreaded. Meaning that they open more than one connection to the host and combine the speeds. This often can mask congestion issues. For instance, imagine that you have a pipe along your route that's limiting you to 10 Mbps. If you open more than one connection through that pipe you'll be able to achieve a faster speed... but testing that way will not clue you in that there is actually a problem along the route. Remember, you shouldn't have to multithread your connection to pull your full speed. Multithreaded speed tests, like the majority out there, are designed to benefit the Internet provider not the consumer. They often display your maximum throughput not your throughput over the course of an entire upload or download. Omitting the worst portion of your test resulting in inflated scores that may make you feel warm and fuzzy but aren't going to help you see and resolve connection issues. Multithreading can show that you're able to max out your connection by combining the speed of concurrent connections but a great connection can max out without having to multithread. So, if you have to multithread your connection to get your full speed, you should be asking why that is. With TestMy.net it's instantly apparent if there is a congested route. Your speed here reflects the actual loading time of data within your browser... not the combined efforts of multiple threads being altered (dropping the top 10% and bottom 30% of the results) and added together, all through a plugin that isn't suited for the task. :: EDIT :: If you'd like to multithread with TMN, I offer that as well. Try the multithread speed test. TMN's multithread test gives you the option to select from an array of servers. Allowing you to test across multiple routes, to more than one server at a time. TestMy.net is the only Internet speed test with this ability. So THAT'S why your results differ. -- TestMy.net is a harder test to ace and a lot less forgiving than other speed tests. But isn't that what a benchmark should be? :: EDIT :: Another thing to consider is if you're running windows, particularly if it's older than Windows 7 you may need to tune your TCP stack to see your full speeds. Windows doesn't always come out of the box optimized for fast connections. Flash based speed tests fail to detect this problem. To make this change for free I recommend TCP Optimizer. This makes changing those settings very easy and nearly fool proof. Just open it, slide the bar over to your speed that you're supposed to have, check "modify all adapters" ...apply the settings and reboot. You should have faster speeds after your re-test if that was the problem. Here's an outside source talking about exactly this issue, I'll hunt down more examples. >> Download Speed Test - Something fishy? A few related topics :: Accuracy.. Slow upload, drastically different from other speed tests Resuts Vs. Actual Download speeds? TestMy.net shows different results than other speed tests TestMy v Ookla Difference Between Speed Test Sites? Satellite Service Testing Locking at around 14Mbps Questioning speedtest.net resolved with TestMy.net Outside Sources :: Internet providers caught inflating speed test results [myce.com] Use Testmy.net or else!! NO MORE speedtest.net posts will be allowed!!! by the Admin on [xplornetsucks.com] Accurate Speeds Or Speed Test Error? on [wildblueworld.com]