A few network bandwidth terms you should know

[CaffeineAddict]

I just found one very interesting article that can help you determine the quality of your network:

What Are Good Latency & Ping Speeds? | PingPlotter

Learn what's "normal" for ping, latency, packet loss, jitter, and more. Compare to your network and use the information to speed up your internet connection.

www.pingplotter.com

Next step is to at regular intervals over a weekend or a month run speed tests on https://www.speedtest.net which in addition to Up\Down speeds will also show you latency values.
Create a spreadsheet and note down all values, then with the help of knowledge from the article you can calculate things like jitter etc. to determine your network quality.

 

[Brickwizard]

I use speedof.me as I found a couple of years back speedtest seemed to be unreliable

 

[CaffeineAddict]

I use speedof.me as I found a couple of years back speedtest seemed to be unreliable

I like the graph but sadly it doesn't measure Up\Down\Idle latency separately so it's unclear what their "latency" refers to.
Another problem is that I can't choose against which server to test, which is useful if you want to test at specific distance.

 

[Brickwizard]

which is useful if you want to test at specific distance.

true, from the UK I use to check a local server and one in Irakilon or Thessaloniki.
I found that if i repeated the same test 2 or 3 times in a row there were often quite big differences yet my sync speed never changes

 

[CaffeineAddict]

I found that if i repeated the same test 2 or 3 times in a row there were often quite big differences yet my sync speed never changes

It's important to close down all programs while running the test but I'm sure you already know this.

I notice bandwidth differences across longer time spans, for ex. it's slow at evening when people are at home but it's twice as fast over night when people sleep.

 

[Brickwizard]

I usually run mine around 5-6 am when most of the UK users and continental users are still waking up,
my sync speed is 39,59 and my normal download is around 38.3, but I was getting as low as 10, and as high as 45 at times [which is not possible], the tech support at my ISP suggested them as they are who he uses.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

my normal download is around 38.3, but I was getting as low as 10, and as high as 45 at times [which is not possible]

My average download (measured over last 2 days) is 24.25 Mbit\s but upload sucks at 4.7 on average, (I'll let you know which country I'm in, in PM because don't like to share it)

I was under impression that you'd have much faster internet in the UK.
I'm on DSL connection btw. but planning to buy fiber cable installment at some point.

 

[Brickwizard]

you have a very nice coastline.

Where we live [we call it in the sticks] in the countryside. The optical cable to our village exchange has a max speed of around 84, this is split at the box to a handful of 84mbs and a larger amount of 40mbs connections. Now the main wiring is copper from the box, until it reaches our estate, [which was built in the 1980.s during the copper shortages], and from the estate distribution box all the underground cables are CCA [copper coated aluminium] which is fine for analogue, but lousy for digital. But I count us as lucky, I could throw my router at the exchange, so my transmission loss is negligible ., the other end of the village their average speed drops to less than 20 mbs [that's about 3k from me.]
I am quite happy with mine, I don't do online gaming, I don't download films etc, so it's fine. Oh, my upload speed is around 8mbs

 

[Brickwizard]

I was under impression that you'd have much faster internet in the UK.

there are still many places with less than 2 mbs, friends in Cornwall were on1.5 until recently, he now gets around 5

 

[CaffeineAddict]

there are still many places with less than 2 mbs, friends in Cornwall were on1.5 until recently, he now gets around 5

This so sad, we live in 2024 and good chunk of population suffers with internet speeds.
People in South Korea have speeds far beyond 100Mbit\s, how is that we in the west can only dream about that.

The only way to get super speeds is fiber cable, I'm paying my ISP for 1Gbit\s however because I'm using copper cable I can only dream about it, yet they have no issues collecting money for something which most people don't have.

 

[Brickwizard]

People in South Korea have speeds far beyond 100Mbit\s,

There are 3 cable operates not 3 miles (ca. 5 km) from our village, but as there are only around 240 homes and 5 farms,all spread out not one of them is interested , we get the standard " not commercially viable" answer

 

[bob466]

there are still many places with less than 2 mbs, friends in Cornwall were on1.5 until recently, he now gets around 5

That's shocking...in 2024 to get speeds as low as that.

I got those speeds back in 2002 4/6 MB...back then it was copper cable. I'm about 50Km from Sydney and get 100MB and could get 780MB but would cost a truck load more...with Fibre of cause.

My mobile phone's download speed is 118MB or 109MB depending on which app you use on 5G.

 

[Condobloke]

I'm 600 - 700 km north of Sydney and get the same as @bob466

 

[Brickwizard]

That's shocking...in 2024 to get speeds as low as that

Bob, this was published in april this year

The slowest street in the UK is not in the deepest, darkest part of the countryside but in the outskirts of London. Morriston Close in Watford is the slowest street in the UK, with an average download speed of 0.6Mb.

For those who do not know where Watford UK is, it lays inside the M25 London orbital motorway on the north-west edge and is a main commuter area it has a population around 105,000

edit.. Got called away before i had time to proofread, correction to population numbers

 

[wm460]

I get a modest 28.8Mb and if I use TOR it drops to 16.0Mb

 

[Brickwizard]

@bob466
you also mentioned mobile connections, where we live, we get a 3bar signal on the wife's 2G mobile [they are turning 2G off in the next year], I am lucky to get 1 bar in one spot in the lounge [3G] and can only get a sporadic 2 bars in the garden on 4G, it will be a long time before we see 5G

 

[CaffeineAddict]

Here is speedtest from couldflare: https://speed.cloudflare.com/

Plus side with this one is that it calculates jitter and packet loss which speedtest does not and provides much more detailed graphs.

In addition to closing down all programs and tabs it's important to run the test in private browser window because browser extensions (at least in my case) caused incorrect test with much worse Up\Down speeds.

 

[bob466]

According to cloudflare my download speed is 78 mbps and upload is 82 mbps.

SpeedOf Me...download...106mbps and upload 26mbps and according to Fast.com https://fast.com/# download is 110mbps and upload is 33mbps. Both of these are about the same...I wouldn't take much notice of cloudflare.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

@bob466
When comparing these test sites it's important to run tests vs a server of same distance.

I have tested vs server in Vienna and got approx same results.

Here is brand new test with some 300km server difference from me:

speedtest:
Down: 32.66
Up: 4.67

cloudflare:
Down 34.2
Up: 4.61

So it's fine.

 

[bob466]

@bob466
you also mentioned mobile connections, where we live, we get a 3bar signal on the wife's 2G mobile [they are turning 2G off in the next year], I am lucky to get 1 bar in one spot in the lounge [3G] and can only get a sporadic 2 bars in the garden on 4G, it will be a long time before we see 5G

2G in Australia was turned off in 2016 and this year 3G will go too. We still have a landline but don't use it very often...years ago the landline and internet were separate but now it's all is connected to the modem.

Last year I started making video calls(4G) to friends which I thought everyone could do in countries like the USA and the UK but it seems it's not the case which is a shame.

I still get dropouts now and then but that's life. Back in the day with copper cable I couldn't watch youtube and when you ring the ISP they came up with all sorts of BS...a car hit a telephone pole...too many people using the net and my favourite...you're too far from the exchange.