ADSL Speed.

[toetoe (Peter)]

Is there a program or utility which you can have running in the background so you can monitor your d/load speed at a glance,??

[RB (Andrew)]

While online I hop onto
http://www.zdnet.com.au/broadband/speedtest.htm
or try
http://promos.mcafee.com/speedometer/test_0150.asp




Andrew

[toetoe (Peter)]

Thanks Andrew, i just tried the zdnet and the test said 1167 kbps and i have 1.5 conection, so i guess my adsl is not up to scratch.

[toetoe (Peter)]

The Mcafee said 976.24 kbps??

[RB (Andrew)]

Don't forget Peter there are no real gaurentees with ADSL or any connection really. Alot of factors come into it.

I'm on a 512kbs plan but I get between 390 and 430.
It's OK though, any faster and I wouldn't be able to finish reading my emails.


Andrew

[toetoe (Peter)]

I'm going through a router as well so i guess the speed will drop a bit while my son is on line at the same time.

[Striker (Tony)]

Its hard to get an accurate reading on any speed....simply download something and if it gets to full speed then all is ok....this will vary from what site your downloading from aswell.

I can download of sites at full speed but simply by surfing through sites it can slow down considerably due the sites bandwidth and popularity...

If you have seen your downloads reach full speed at any time thats enough to know its working fine.

[RB (Andrew)]

Originally Posted by Striker

If you have seen your downloads reach full speed at any time thats enough to know its working fine.

Exactly Tony, spot on.

[Thiink]

Originally Posted by toetoe

Thanks Andrew, i just tried the zdnet and the test said 1167 kbps and i have 1.5 conection, so i guess my adsl is not up to scratch.

Two things: encapsulation overheads, and International bandwidth. The first relates to overheads involved with ADSL networks (eg. PPP, PPPoE/A and MAC overheads etc). To get a rough idea of expected maximum speeds take your line speed, then minus 15% of that off for overheads, and then divide it by 8 to get bits to bytes.

Eg. 1500 - 225 / 8 = 159.375 kiloBytes per second (which is only a few K under the max I've had on my Internode 1500/256 ADSL connection).
Eg. 512 - 76.8 = 54.4 kiloBytes per second

The second part relates to Internation bandwidth. Basically if you are trying to judge if there is something wrong with your Internet connection speeds, or you are curious about speeds don't download something, or run a test from an International website as its just not accurate. Use something local if possible (Internode offer their customers a locally hosted speed test, not available from other ISPS, though), like downloading something from planetmirror.com, or mirror.aarnet and report what speeds you get.

[toetoe (Peter)]

One dosn't now all factors until someone explains it all. Thanks guys.

[GrampianStars (Rob)]

7816 kbits downloaded in 19 secs on Zdnet (410 kbps)
using wireless D-Link and standard out of the box Telstra ADSL