https speed test

[Sean]

One issue I'm noticing now and again particularly with mobile broadband providers is that some treat http and https traffic differently.  A good example I posted a while back is where the 3 Ireland mobile provider was providing considerably quicker throughput with https traffic than http traffic. 

Before my recent trip to California, I bought a 3UK 1GB prepay SIM so I could use data on my phone during my trip as it does not have roaming charges in the USA.  While this worked for most of my trip, I noticed some websites were incredibly slow to load.  When I was back in Ireland, I did some further tests with that SIM with the remaining data credit and sure enough it was a similar issue here also and found that any website using https including Three's own website took a very long time to load.  When I tried YouTube (which uses https), it would play a grainy picture for a few seconds, then buffer for a while and repeat.  Yet when I ran a speed test, I kept getting 6Mbps to 10Mbps with TestMy, which is carried out over http.  Other streaming services were practically unusable and even a 128kbps streaming radio station could not play without endlessly rebuffering. 

So while it's pretty clear Three UK throttles pretty much everything besides plain http traffic when roaming on a 3 like home network, I would be curious to actually run a speed test on a https connection just to see what limited bandwidth they are throttling down to. 

I could not find any other site that performs such tests, yet it seems to be a pretty common search going by Google's autocomplete:

So I assume there must be some interest in such a test.

[CA3LE]

I'll work on this for you.  

[CA3LE]

Alright, it's only on one server right now and you have to manually call upon it with a URL.  I'll make sure this becomes an option everyone can easily use.

 https://co.testmy.net/SmarTest/down - https://co.testmy.net/SmarTest/up (or add https to any of the common test URLs e.g. https://co.testmy.net/SmarTest/combinedAuto - https://co.testmy.net/dl-1MB and https://co.testmy.net/ul-1MB)

I'll let you know when I duplicate this across the network.  Thanks for the suggestion.  

[mudmanc4]

Alright, it's only on one server right now and you have to manually call upon it with a URL.  I'll make sure this becomes an option everyone can easily use.

 https://co.testmy.net/SmarTest/down - https://co.testmy.net/SmarTest/up (or add https to any of the common test URLs e.g. https://co.testmy.net/SmarTest/combinedAuto - https://co.testmy.net/dl-1MB and https://co.testmy.net/ul-1MB)

I'll let you know when I duplicate this across the network.  Thanks for the suggestion.  

This post requires a +1 like times ten interwebz button

[Sean]

I gave it a try and it works - I'm fairly sure you're now the first to provide a https speed test, at least one which does not require the dreaded Java.

I tried Edge, Firefox and Chrome and Firefox is the only one that's a little picky in that each time it completes a block, it asks if I'm sure I want to send info over an insecure connection before it proceeds to the next block size. 

I tried it on my phone and it works there also.  I wasn't sure at first if it would let me past the security certificate warning, but there was an option in the 'Advanced' link to ignore the warning, similar to the desktop Chrome browser. 

If you can get this on the UK or German server, that would be great.

[CA3LE]

You shouldn't get the warnings anymore, as long as you've accepted the cert on both testmy.net and the server you've selected.

You can now visit https://testmy.net and it will work with all servers.  Let me know if you have any problems.  Later I'll make a way to differentiate the tests taken with ssl (https) in the database.

[Sean]

I gave it a quick try with the German server and appears to work fine in all three browsers.

On the phone, there is a small issue where the button images are not showing, but otherwise the download & upload tests work fine:

I must try it when I'm back in a 3G or LTE reception when I'm at my workplace.  Pity the 3UK SIM expired, as I'm sure it would have shown how badly they discriminate between http and https traffic.  The 3 Ireland doesn't seem to be like that when roaming in the UK as I don't recall having any issue with browsing performance while going through Northern Ireland.  Either way, I'm curious to run https speed tests then next time I'm roaming on the UK network. 

[CA3LE]

On the phone, there is a small issue where the button images are not showing, but otherwise the download & upload tests work fine:

Fixed.

I must try it when I'm back in a 3G or LTE reception when I'm at my workplace.  Pity the 3UK SIM expired, as I'm sure it would have shown how badly they discriminate between http and https traffic.  The 3 Ireland doesn't seem to be like that when roaming in the UK as I don't recall having any issue with browsing performance while going through Northern Ireland.  Either way, I'm curious to run https speed tests then next time I'm roaming on the UK network. 

When you have results, please share them.  

[Sean]

When I try to run any multithreaded https test, it gets stuck, such as following example when I tried a 25MB block:

However, with linear tests, the difference is very noticeable on the mobile network with https transfers running at least 3 times faster!  I'll post those results in the 3 throttling traffic thread. . .

 

Edited October 23, 2015 by Sean

[CA3LE]

Thanks for catching that, it's displaying properly now.  Although, I'm not allowing it to multithread over https.  It shows https in your browser but the test is actually pulling the data over http.  The problem is if you haven't previously authenticated each sub domain it will ignore that portion of the test.  For me, I had authenticated all but a couple of the servers... multithread test against all of the servers showed an instant progress of 20% just loading the page... because if they aren't authenticated the test thinks the information has been loaded.  It will need further development to avoid those issues from affecting the results.  So for right now the multithread test remains http only.

[Sean]

That's no problem - The main thing is being able to test whether an ISP is discriminating between https and http traffic and I think the linear test does that pretty well.

I posted on the Three support forum showing the drastic speed differences between http and https, asking why this is.  After the usual "Try this & that" responses, it made no difference in that I continued to get vast difference between http and https speed tests, so am now waiting to see what their network team responds with.  Today is also the worst I've seen their network perform where the TestMy download page was intermittently timing out just trying to bring up the page to start the regular http test (test result was about 150kbps on LTE!), while the https test had no problem once I dismissed the security certificate warnings.

I tried with the Meteor network and both http and https tests gave similar results, so Meteor doesn't seem to prioritise or throttle one protocol over the other. 

[CA3LE]

Been watching that topic... I like your quote,

The main thing that kept me with Three until now was knowing it had unlimited data usage on a €20 top-up, but what use is that if it's like an all-you-can-eat buffet that serves barely chewable food?

I bet they just want you to leave now... because you're asking too many questions.  Disturbing the status quo.  

Or are they helping you in PM?  I'd hope they would have responded since Friday.

"Oh no Boss, they have a way to test and prove that we're ripping them off now!"

[Sean]

No response by PM, which seems usual when I try to contact them by their feedback form.

I decided to post that after the experience I had on Saturday and what I mentioned points out the issues I discussed with them by e-mail over the past year and remain unresolved or got no response to.  Early in the day, I kept losing the signal, then it would come back and as just as I went to use my mobile, it was back to "You are offline".  Then when the network signal finally stayed up, pages were intermittently loading, sometimes taking 5 minutes just to get a something to load.

The "All you can eat" policy was nice as the "Data remaining" meter would go straight to 2TB when I did a €20 top-up.  When I first joined Three, they were the only one with a generous data allowance on prepay as most of the others only offered a 1GB bundle or charged a lot for anything larger and Three also had the best 3G coverage at the time. 

Now most of the networks here do 5GB to 20GB bundles reasonably priced and have much better 3G and 4G coverage (except those that piggyback on Three).  Although I didn't mention in the post, what I also liked about Three was that tethering worked even though they state it's not permitted on prepay plans.  The other networks permit tethering.  But then again, it's seldom I need to tether now as the screen size is large enough on the OnePlus 2 to do most things directly on the phone. When I first joined Three, my phone had a 3.7" screen, compared to the 5.5" of the OnePlus series.

To give a better idea of problems their network is now facing, have a look at the number of issues reported about data and coverage in their support section on boards.ie for the past week:

http://www.boards.ie/ttforum/1367

Now compare this to the number of data/coverage problems reported in the Meteor support section on boards.ie over the past week:

http://www.boards.ie/ttforum/1558

[Sean]

I bet they just want you to leave now... because you're asking too many questions.  Disturbing the status quo. 

Sorry, I got carried away writing it after my earlier frustration with their network that day, coupled with writing it after midnight. 

I edited the excess waffle.  The Three forum team are generally not online on Sunday, so probably haven't read that post yet.

[CA3LE]

To give a better idea of problems their network is now facing, have a look at the number of issues reported about data and coverage in their support section on boards.ie for the past week:

http://www.boards.ie/ttforum/1367

Now compare this to the number of data/coverage problems reported in the Meteor support section on boards.ie over the past week:

http://www.boards.ie/ttforum/1558

Many more posts on the Three forum... but are the two companies the same size?  Who's more popular?

[Sean]

Going by this article published a year ago, Vodafone has the highest market share of 38.2%, followed by Three at 32.8% and Meteor at 20.5%.  The virtual networks make up the rest.

The following is the Vodafone section on boards.ie.  This also covers their landline/DSL services, which Meteor and Three don't have:

http://www.boards.ie/ttforum/1270

Vodafone is mainly popular due to large corporations and having probably the best 3G and 4G coverage in Ireland.  They have rather restrictive data packages, e.g. largest bundle is 5GB on prepay mobile and 7.5GB on prepay broadband.  So their network is unsurprisingly the quickest, which I believe they do this to keep its corporate customers happy.  On the other hand, they are probably the most reasonable for fixed line services, so I have Vodafone for my phone and DSL, which has a 1TB fair use limit.

Edited October 26, 2015 by Sean

[Sean]

They seem to have to done some tweaks so there's no longer a difference between http and https speed tests, at least not with a handful of tests I tried with the UK and German services.  However, their fix seems to have involved throttling https connections, so now the https speed tests are similar to the speed tests I was getting on http last Friday.  

The only PM I received was a security question to confirm my identity.

[CA3LE]

The only PM I received was a security question to confirm my identity.

This makes me wonder if they only fixed it for you.  Leaving the rest of the customers who haven't complained to enjoy their current level of service.

"Tell us who you are..." --- "okay, now we can discriminate your SIM since you're asking too many questions."  --- they're saying it was due to an outage... how?  I'd expect if there was an issue like that affecting you, it would affect every protocol equally.

If you were to try another customers SIM an prove that it's still acting that way for other people... then we really have an interesting situation.  IMO it would prove their intention.

[Sean]

Unfortunately I don't know anyone else on the Three network apart from my Mother who was on the O2 network that Three gobbled up.  Although O2 and Three merged, O2 had its own towers, packages, etc. (unlike the virtual operators) and the two networks have not yet been physically merged.  Most people I know are on Tesco Mobile, which is a virtual network that piggybacks on the former O2 network.  Most of them don't use data at all, i.e. they use WhasApp, Facebook, etc. all over Wi-Fi only.

I did a multi-threaded test earlier also and it appears that Three's throttling is back to per connection as I get considerably quicker speeds with multi-threaded tests.  Last Friday I was getting similar speeds between linear and multi-threaded tests, but https tests were consistently faster.

I think the https test is in the middle as the results page currently doesn't differentiate between the two:

 

The following is with a 25MB block as the above multi-threaded test decided to complete after trying a 6MB block.

Edited October 27, 2015 by Sean
The forum keeps adding extra line breaks in my posts

[condi]

Hi Sean and CA3LE,

 

Sean, I saw your thread over on Three's support forum - which introduced me to the excellent testmy.net website - which then brought me to your thread here!!

 

If it's of any help, I'm also on Three Ireland and avail of the €20 All-You-Can-Eat pre-pay offer. Furthermore, I'm in Donegal too so not too far from yourself. I don't have LTE in my area but I do have a good, clear HSPA+ signal on an un-congested, rural cell site

 

I'd be happy to run some tests for you on my handset if only to prove the issue you've discovered is not specific to yourself. The thread above is a little crowded so if you want, you can send on the series of tests you'd like me to conduct and I'll post the results here

[Sean]

That would be great Condi.  Welcome aboard.

 

I don't get even the faintest Three 3G signal at home, so can't try any testing in the evening.  In fact, I recently bought a high gain LOG antenna to try boosting the Meteor signal I get at home.  My DSL connection is about 4Mb down and 0.3Mb up and I've a practically useless fixed wireless connection ("50Mb Down/10Mb Up" package on North West Electronics) which currently gives around 3Mb down and 0.02Mb up in the evening.  I must get the 3G antenna fixed outside, but in the attic, it's giving about 5.5Mb down and 0.6Mb up on Meteor (no signal inside without the antenna).  If you are able to test in the morning, 9am or thereabouts is when I've mainly run my tests as this is the time I arrive at work before I get stuck in.

 

Three's technical support called me on Tuesday, but seem to put the blame on my handset as I wasn't able to test the SIM in another handset that day.  I have a Nano to Micro SIM adapter, but was at home.  I'll aim to bring it with on Friday to run some tests in my older HTC One SV handset, which also works on the band 20 LTE they're using around Ballybofey.

 

The following are two linear 12MB tests run this morning, https on the right:

 

 

Multithreaded is considerably better, but not the peaks I once got a few months back:

 

 

I sure would love to run a 4G speed test on Meteor some time.  The following is a linear 3G speed test, not to mention it ran on the Texas server in the US!  For some reason the mobile site intermittently loses the cookie, which in turn defaults back to either the Colorado Springs or Dallas server.

 

 

Tomorrow morning around 9am, I'll aim to run a 25MB linear http & https test with the UK server on the Three network, so if would like to do the same, that would be great and would give a pretty good comparison. 

Edited October 29, 2015 by Sean

[Sean]

The following are two 25MB linear tests with the Three server using the UK server, https on the right:

 

 

Multithreaded http seems to be getting better again on Three as it was several weeks ago that I last seen it break 20Mbps on LTE.

 

 

I brought with the nano SIM adapter, so ran two further tests in my older HTC One SV.  Three (on LTE) on the left, Meteor (3G HSPA+) on the right, both http linear tests using the UK server.