Speed Test, which one is correct?
Discussion
Living in a rural area I use an EE 4G data only (unlimited) sim for my home broadband. MicroTik antenna/modem mounted on the roof of the house, Cat 5 cable to MicroTik WiFi router in the sitting room. It works pretty well but on occasion we do get buffering when streaming tv. (tbf, not very often, couple of times a month).
Running a speed test just now (quiet Saturday morning) Ookla reports 20-25 Mbps. Running a test on Fast.com or Thinkbroadband I get much higher speeds, 75-80 Mbps. Run the test multiple times, different times, dats etc., but Ookla always much lower than TBB and Fast.com.
Which should I trust?
Anyone know if EE throttle download speed on unlimited data contracts? I notice that Vodafone, for example, state “Speed: fastest available”. EE make no such statement. Out of contract with EE and tempted to switch provider.
Running a speed test just now (quiet Saturday morning) Ookla reports 20-25 Mbps. Running a test on Fast.com or Thinkbroadband I get much higher speeds, 75-80 Mbps. Run the test multiple times, different times, dats etc., but Ookla always much lower than TBB and Fast.com.
Which should I trust?
Anyone know if EE throttle download speed on unlimited data contracts? I notice that Vodafone, for example, state “Speed: fastest available”. EE make no such statement. Out of contract with EE and tempted to switch provider.
annodomini2 said:
More likely contention on the base station.
Someone else in your area using up the bandwidth.
Ookla always reports lower speeds than the other, tested over a period f months, different times of day, and different days of the week.Someone else in your area using up the bandwidth.
Is it possible that EE throttles the download, and Ookla is correctly reporting, but when testing with Fast.com or TBB, EE can detect the tester being used and remove the restriction for that particular test, leaving the customer believing he's getting much faster speeds than he actually receives in normal use?
The Ookla tests might vary depending on which server is selected. It will usually try and direct tests to the server that is geographically nearest but this doesn’t mean it is well connected to your provider or representative of the path your Internet traffic will actually take.
You can select which server you want to use. I’d recommend selecting one from a big ISP located in London, but not your ISP/network as that isn’t testing their transit/peering capacity and so won’t reflect your experience of using the connection in anger. I normally pick Vodafone’s London server as it’s very consistent, even at very high speeds (5Gbps+).
As the poster above alluded to, mobile network performance and user experience is highly variable depending on how many users are connected and what they’re doing. Any wireless connection has to time slice between users to some degree, and a lot of rural base stations still use radio links for backhaul so the station might only have a 100Mbps radio uplink. It’s connectivity of the last resort IMO.
You can select which server you want to use. I’d recommend selecting one from a big ISP located in London, but not your ISP/network as that isn’t testing their transit/peering capacity and so won’t reflect your experience of using the connection in anger. I normally pick Vodafone’s London server as it’s very consistent, even at very high speeds (5Gbps+).
As the poster above alluded to, mobile network performance and user experience is highly variable depending on how many users are connected and what they’re doing. Any wireless connection has to time slice between users to some degree, and a lot of rural base stations still use radio links for backhaul so the station might only have a 100Mbps radio uplink. It’s connectivity of the last resort IMO.
quinny100 said:
The Ookla tests might vary depending on which server is selected. It will usually try and direct tests to the server that is geographically nearest but this doesn’t mean it is well connected to your provider or representative of the path your Internet traffic will actually take.
You can select which server you want to use. I’d recommend selecting one from a big ISP located in London, but not your ISP/network as that isn’t testing their transit/peering capacity and so won’t reflect your experience of using the connection in anger. I normally pick Vodafone’s London server as it’s very consistent, even at very high speeds (5Gbps+).
As the poster above alluded to, mobile network performance and user experience is highly variable depending on how many users are connected and what they’re doing. Any wireless connection has to time slice between users to some degree, and a lot of rural base stations still use radio links for backhaul so the station might only have a 100Mbps radio uplink. It’s connectivity of the last resort IMO.
I normally pick Vodafone’s London serverYou can select which server you want to use. I’d recommend selecting one from a big ISP located in London, but not your ISP/network as that isn’t testing their transit/peering capacity and so won’t reflect your experience of using the connection in anger. I normally pick Vodafone’s London server as it’s very consistent, even at very high speeds (5Gbps+).
As the poster above alluded to, mobile network performance and user experience is highly variable depending on how many users are connected and what they’re doing. Any wireless connection has to time slice between users to some degree, and a lot of rural base stations still use radio links for backhaul so the station might only have a 100Mbps radio uplink. It’s connectivity of the last resort IMO.
Thanks, that makes a difference!
I selected Vodafone Bracknell (couldn't find London), and Ookla reported 72 Mbps. Same with Voda Watford server. I'll sleep easy now.
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