Gigatown Speeds

Forums › New Zealand Broadband › Gigatown Speeds

1 | 2

KrazyKid

1238 posts

Uber Geek

#1510539 10-Mar-2016 13:16

Talkiet:

For speedtest.net servers, within NZ it basically doesn't matter how far away they are... I can see all the results on our three servers and gigatown customers get (basically) the same speeds to our Chch, Wgtn and Akl speedtest.net servers..

Interesting to know - I recollected differently but stand corrected.

For me (and I suspect most people) Giga internet is a shiny new toy that you want to push as hard as you can to start with. At this stage the speedtest numbers are very important.

Then you get used to it, it becomes normal and realize that the rest of the internet is the next bottleneck :).

Finally you enjoy the fact that two tenageers can't hog the bandwidth no matter how hard they try.

When the Dunedin prices go up for Gigatown I will no doubt change down to slower cheaper plan, but hey - for now its nice to have.

Aaron2222

216 posts

Master Geek

#1511605 11-Mar-2016 21:42

I'm consistently getting 206 down and 230 up. Have tried with the Spark router, speed did not go up. I'm starting to think it might be provisioning. Btw, no one has yet explained why running simultaneous speed tests causes bad results.

Jase2985

13459 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#1511606 11-Mar-2016 21:49

if were on a 200/200 plan i wouldnt think your up would be 230

are you testing via ethernet or Wifi?

Aaron2222

216 posts

Master Geek

#1511608 11-Mar-2016 21:51

Ethernet. Gigabit WAN and LAN on the router and Gigabit LAN on the computer.

Talkiet

4792 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1511633 11-Mar-2016 22:33

Aaron2222: I'm consistently getting 206 down and 230 up. Have tried with the Spark router, speed did not go up. I'm starting to think it might be provisioning. Btw, no one has yet explained why running simultaneous speed tests causes bad results.

Have you gone and read the detailed methodology of the speedtest.net tests yet, as recommended a way back? It should be apparent when you understand that why multiple "simultaneous" tests won't give the additive result you think they might.

(Give a man a fish, teach a man to fish etc)

Cheers - N

(See PM for recommendation on sending the info to someone to check the provisioning)

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

DarkShadow

1647 posts

Uber Geek

#1511645 11-Mar-2016 22:46

Can you tell us what router you're using?

Jase2985

13459 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#1511714 12-Mar-2016 06:52

having a Gbit port on something doesnt mean you will ever see Gbit speeds, some devices just cant cope

Tradepub

Free professional, reference and technical white papers (affiliate link).

Aaron2222

216 posts

Master Geek

#1511768 12-Mar-2016 09:36

It's a Netgear N600 (DGND3700v2).

Aaron2222

216 posts

Master Geek

#1511787 12-Mar-2016 10:22

I've had a look at how speedtest.net works. I'm going to hazard a guess and say that because the speed test only takes an average of the top 75% of results (drops the bottom quarter), when you run simultaneous speed tests, the real time speed each test is measuring is going to fluctuate (one gets faster and the other slower, and visa versa) which means the averaging process which drops the bottom 25% of results is going to show a faster speed then what it actually got, so when you add the two together, it totals to above the actual total speed of your connection. Would this be correct?

Talkiet

4792 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1511842 12-Mar-2016 10:46

Aaron2222: I've had a look at how speedtest.net works. I'm going to hazard a guess and say that because the speed test only takes an average of the top 75% of results (drops the bottom quarter), when you run simultaneous speed tests, the real time speed each test is measuring is going to fluctuate (one gets faster and the other slower, and visa versa) which means the averaging process which drops the bottom 25% of results is going to show a faster speed then what it actually got, so when you add the two together, it totals to above the actual total speed of your connection. Would this be correct?

Well done... very very close. You've identified one of the reasons that the speedtest.net tests manage to basically show the approximate line rate much of the time... They have numerous fudge factors and they use a non centrally tended sample of the actual download tests to derive the score...

The specific reason I was thinking of why multiple tests at the same time won't show an additive speed is that each speedtest is broken up into multiple segments (some with slow start, some are uploads etc)... Regardless of how closely you start the tests to each other there's a very high likelihood that while one of the tests is in slow start, or between downloads, the other test might be getting great speed for those few seconds.

And then, as you have seen already, each of those tests is going to pick and choose what segments of the test they use to calculate the score, meaning it's highly likely that the 2 scores together would add up to greater than the bandwidth available.

I have to admit before now I hadn't even bothered checking to see if my theory was correct (I was confident :-) but I did the test right now and starting the tests as quick as a mouse could move from one window to the other I got

51.61Mbps to the Wgtn Spark server and

27.49Mbps to the Chch Spark server for a total of...

just over 79Mbps.

That's a good trick on my 63Mbps VDSL line :-)

Well done on looking and figuring it out though. even 90% of the people on here can't be bothered thinking as hard as you have about speedtest results.

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

Aaron2222

216 posts

Master Geek

#1513133 14-Mar-2016 15:53

Turns out the issue was provisioning. I am now getting 650 MBits/Second Down and 450 MBits/Second up. Thanks to cbrpilot from Spark for sorting this out for me.

1 | 2