Acceptable speed for a Gigabit Fibre Connection

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#1468963 13-Jan-2016 10:21

Don't quote me on the finer detail of the issue they were looking into, Might not even be related

RunningMan

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#1468964 13-Jan-2016 10:23

What OS are you using? Can you open Task Manager / Activity Monitor and see what is happening with CPU and memory utilisation on your computer when testing - that should give you an indication as to whether your PC is up to the job. An i3 processor is entry level, so it's quite possible your PC is the weakest link in the chain.

Can you provide more specific details of your PC hardware - as noted above, entry level ones may use a USB-ethernet adaptor internally, so about 450 Mb/s is a good as it will get.

How well do you know the other locals who are getting higher throughput - as in could you borrow a computer for a short time for testing?

denemc

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#1468967 13-Jan-2016 10:27

It's actually a borrowed i3 as my i5 laptop only has a 100 meg port (I know!). I'm at work so not sure of the exact specs.

Vodafone did lots of testing and were watching the process monitors to keep an eye on speed. I might do some testing and transfer some files around to and from my NAS and see what the connection does - would be one way to confirm it for sure.

My brother has a MacBook so I'll get that and see what result I get.

Talkiet

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#1468972 13-Jan-2016 10:38

Try using the spark Chch speedtest.net server... I can see the results it generates and it's what we get our gigatown customers to use - they typically get above 900 Mbps to that server. (Actually they usually get 900+Mbps to all three of our speedtest servers but that's another story for people that genuinely understand how the Ookla systems and TCP work)

The main issue, as many have alluded to, is that at gigabit speeds there are so many factors apart from the performance of the ISP and LFC access network component that it's really hard to figure out if the issue is with your PC, your LAN, the ISP/LFC network, or the source that you're connecting to.

The only truly reliable way to test is to have control of another very well connected machine (gig at least) and run a UDP test from there to your machine, and port mirror at locations along the way. That's stupidly complex and expensive and will never be done for a residential connection.

The reason I suggest trying another Ookla server is that I have seen more server to server variation on Speedtest.net than ANY other speedtest platform. Some of their servers (which are all owned/operated by the ISP/host) seem to be connected by a wet string and powered by hamster.

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sbiddle

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#1469012 13-Jan-2016 11:54

denemc: We actually have Vodafone TV boxes (don't do it, they are terrible and we are getting them removed on Monday) and if I do the speed test with them on the TV drops out meaning the connection is saturated - which points to yet another problem they refuse to acknowledge. The Vodafone TV is supposed to be on a parallel fibre connection. If this is true, then doing a speed test would have no impact on it.

It's not delivered over a parallel fibre connection, it's delivered using multicast over fibre

MadEngineer

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#1470375 13-Jan-2016 21:20

An i3 will have no problems doing gigabit. Done plenty of deployments with such a speccd machine and they certainly made use of gigabit to pull down system images. The i3 is a very capable processor - don't put it into the same category as a celeron.

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#1470377 13-Jan-2016 21:23

Its more the choice of nic they use, and how it is connected, and also plenty of "security" and "internet optimization" software can screw up thruput in a big way too. Easiest to just run the same PC up on another connection and see what it speed tests at there to rule it out.

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Zreh

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#1470492 14-Jan-2016 01:34

Quick question OP (for educational reasons...): How fast do your torrent speeds go? I'm on 50Down/10 up (sobs) and I thought that it was fast. ~600Mb Down... Jesus.

Batman

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#1470513 14-Jan-2016 08:11

First, factory reset your router.

michaelmurfy

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#1470640 14-Jan-2016 11:08

Zreh: Quick question OP (for educational reasons...): How fast do your torrent speeds go? I'm on 50Down/10 up (sobs) and I thought that it was fast. ~600Mb Down... Jesus.

Lets say the OP gets the full ~900mbit (TCP overheads etc) of his connection. Internet speeds will peak out at around 112.5mb/sec.

And here I am thinking that my 200/200 connection is fast - that's around 25mb/sec

But on this subject ensure that testing is done without any devices connected to the network, on gigabit Ethernet and ensuring torrent apps etc are closed. On this sort of connection it would not surprise me your torrent app will open up a crapload of connections potentially overwhelming your router. Also ensure that testing is done on Google Chrome or Firefox. My suggestion would be to grab a laptop with a gigabit Ethernet port, boot it up into Ubuntu Linux (download the ISO here and load it onto a USB stick using an app using these instructions) - this will ensure that nothing in Windows is preventing you from reaching the full potential of your line and also give you a more accurate test.

Since Ubuntu (or any other *nix distro) doesn't come with flash by default use the better HTML5 speedtest and select a server close to you from the Beta speedtest page. This will also ensure you're getting a more accurite respensation of your speeds however it is important you use a newer browser (Google Chrome, Firefox or Edge) to ensure it works correctly: http://beta.speedtest.net/

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Zreh

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#1470654 14-Jan-2016 11:30

Thanks for the information! Have you ever gotten 25mb/sec while you download? I usually get about 4.8 down max on my torrents and 6.1 down when pulling something from Google's servers. Also.. I noticed that you linked beta.speedtest.. is there any difference with the normal speedtest or does it just look prettier?

edit: it's HTML5 vs Flash

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#1470680 14-Jan-2016 11:49

MB I think, not mb. /pedant
900 mb ~ 125MB

Jase2985

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#1470708 14-Jan-2016 12:03

Zreh: Thanks for the information! Have you ever gotten 25mb/sec while you download? I usually get about 4.8 down max on my torrents and 6.1 down when pulling something from Google's servers. Also.. I noticed that you linked beta.speedtest.. is there any difference with the normal speedtest or does it just look prettier? edit: it's HTML5 vs Flash

I sit on line speed on my 70/30 VDSL connection, which is about 8MB/s down shown in both Utorrent and in Firefox when downloading an update etc.

really does depend on the content and where it is hosted