Ask Slashdot: An Accurate Broadband Speed Test?

First time accepted submitter kyrcant writes Is there a way to accurately really test my "broadband" connection? I don't trust the usual sites, the first ones I found via Google. I suspect (and found) that at least some of them are directly affiliated with ISPs, and I further suspect that traffic to those addresses is probably prioritized, so people will think they're getting a good deal. The speeds I experience are much, much slower than the speed tests show I'm capable of. For a while I thought it might be the sites themselves, but they load faster on my T-Mobile HTC One via 4G than on my laptop via WiFi through a cable modem connection. Is there a speed test site that has a variable or untraceable IP address, so that the traffic can't be prioritized by my ISP (call them "ConCazt")? If not, which sites are not in any way affiliated with ISPs? Is there a way to test it using YouTube or downloading a set file which can be compared to other users' results? (Have your own question for the teeming masses? Ask away — be sure to include appropriate detail and context — via the Slashdot submission form.)

Comments

Re:ndt

[Anonymous Coward]

I've done it. I've downloaded a large file from a friend that was taking forever, i.e. in the realm of two hours total time. A half hour in or so, I got sick of it and we both had bandwidth to spare. On a whim, he moved it to a folder on the exact same server called /speedtest/ and I tried again. The second download finished before the first one did and exceeded the bandwidth I was provided (my service is 2 MB/s and the file downloaded at over 3). Literally everything was the same, but one file downloaded at 3MB/s and finished in under 10 minutes and the other chugged along around 200KB/s.

You should try it yourself sometime. Just follow the speedtest.net directory structure.