Factors Determining Broadband Speed
By Janey1966
@Janey1966 (24170)
Carlisle, England
June 29, 2011 6:47pm CST
It helps if you have a decent machine with an even better Broadband connection. Ours is wireless and we changed from BT (British Telecom) to Sky recently, mainly to save John some money. No probs so far after about a month in.
Anyway, two more factors determining speed (I reckon) are location in relation to the Exchange and the time of day you're on the internet.
For example, it is now 0036am and I've just conducted a test on Speedtest.net, an awesome site that anyone can use. Results are as follows:-
Download Speed: 8.82Mbps
Upload Speed: 0.82Mbps
I conducted the same test a few days ago and the download speed, in particular was around 6, if memory serves but that was at a time when more people are online.
I would love it if fellow Lotters could test their comps to compare speeds around the world.
Hope you can join in..and what do you think of the results? Satisfactory or downright UN-satisfactory lol. I promise you it's a safe site to use, otherwise I wouldn't be on it.
I'm very happy with my results but I do reckon my new-er computer is far faster than my old computer due to the fact it's..er, new. Does that have a bearing on speed, newer processors and the like, bearing in mind my Sony lasted 9 years, albeit about 3 of those being very slow, despite a memory upgrade?
Upload Speed: 0.82Mbps
I conducted the same test a few days ago and the download speed, in particular was around 6, if memory serves but that was at a time when more people are online.
I would love it if fellow Lotters could test their comps to compare speeds around the world.
Hope you can join in..and what do you think of the results? Satisfactory or downright UN-satisfactory lol. I promise you it's a safe site to use, otherwise I wouldn't be on it.
I'm very happy with my results but I do reckon my new-er computer is far faster than my old computer due to the fact it's..er, new. Does that have a bearing on speed, newer processors and the like, bearing in mind my Sony lasted 9 years, albeit about 3 of those being very slow, despite a memory upgrade?1 person likes this
10 responses
@changjiangzhibin89 (17243)
• China
30 Jun 11
Yours puts mine to shame.The production date on my PC is 2005,so It is out of date.The speed of broadband I have paid for is 2 MB.So far,I feel It is just passable.Doing as you said,I conducted a test on speedtest.net,at 17:02,June,30,2011,average download speed:234.5 KB/sec.Sometime I don't open mylot.I guess it is because of "heavy traffic".
@Janey1966 (24170)
• Carlisle, England
30 Jun 11
I wonder if it's down to population. I mean, China is a big place with billions of people. Could it be this that effects speed..you know, a few billion people being online all at the same time?
1 person likes this
@veganbliss (3895)
• Adelaide, Australia
30 Jun 11
Oh goodie - a computer speed contest! The Adelaide server has me at 10.35Mbps download speed & a ping of 41ms. It couldn't do the upload speed & after I tried it a second time it couldn't do anything at all! Not bad for an old work computer running Windows 2000. This test was run at high noon here.
@Janey1966 (24170)
• Carlisle, England
30 Jun 11
I'm impressed! I can't remember what the speed was on my old Sony that's now defunct but this one definitely works faster. No worries with your machine though...way to go!
Windows 2000? My, I used that at work..er, in 2000 lol. You're doing brilliantly holding onto that. I used to LOVE XP, I really did but Windows 7 is OK, I suppose.
Windows 2000? My, I used that at work..er, in 2000 lol. You're doing brilliantly holding onto that. I used to LOVE XP, I really did but Windows 7 is OK, I suppose.@veganbliss (3895)
• Adelaide, Australia
1 Jul 11
I have XP at home - it's great, but no internet. The one at work has been repaired so many times already, it's a wonder it's still going at all!
@RawBill1 (8531)
• Gold Coast, Australia
30 Jun 11
There are a lot of factors that determine broadband speed. What sort of connection you have (cable, ADSL, wireless), the distance from the exchange if you are on ADSL and interference around the area in the form of trees and hills if you are on wireless. The age of the computer plays a big part in the speed of the pages downloading as computers with less RAM cannot access too many pages at once or pages with loads of graphical content such as videos. I know that when I updated my computer a couple of months back, the difference was extremely noticeable due to the RAM being 2 gig instead of 512mb.
My speed is not what it used to be now that I have moved and am relying on wireless, but we have what is apparently the fastest modem available in Australia, so it is not too bad. I ran the test and it was 7.29mbs for downloads and 1.82mbs for uploads. I am reasonably happy with that as I do not expect super fast speeds with wireless.
@Janey1966 (24170)
• Carlisle, England
30 Jun 11
To confuse you more mine is wired and John's is wireless. Work that one out lol.
He needs to replace his iMac as it's going the same way as my old Sony did..up in the computer-graveyard in the sky!
@inertia4 (27978)
• United States
30 Jun 11
Well from what I read once, Japan has no restriction on internet speed. They get speeds in the giga bites. Here we are restricted because of bandwidth. I have high speed internet and I am right now getting speeds of 30mbps. I could upgrade to get around 300mbps but it is very expensive. Although I have nothing but problems with CableVision. They are the worlds worst.
@Janey1966 (24170)
• Carlisle, England
30 Jun 11
I never knew that about Japan. Such an innovative nation, I'm sure they will bounce back after that dreadful earthquake/tsunami. We need them for all these technological advances..we're about 10 years behind them, always have been!
@Mich431Hawk (1)
• United States
30 Jun 11
I just recently switched from Qwest to Bresnan. I have noticed a large speed increase because I went from 1.5 Mbps to between 12 and 18 Mbps. A lot of this has to do with the provider. A provider like Qwest offers a much stabler, slower connection. It won't fluctuate. Bresnan however, is cable, so there speeds vary a lot more often. This is caused by everyone "sharing" bandwidth. If 2 people are online, they will perform slower if only one person was online. Also check to make sure you have a decent modem. If you can, try to upgrade it and you might get a better signal. Samee thing if your using a wireless router - make sure that it is a strong enough signal from where your using your computer. Hope this helps.
@SpikeTheLobster (6399)
•
30 Jun 11
From what I understand, the factors affecting broadband are distance, as you say, the capacity of the line and the contention ratio. The last one's important: it's how many other people are using the same line as you (which roughly translates as your 'time of day' factor, though only because more people are online at certain times). Most providers guarantee a certain maximum ratio (often 50:1) so that your minimum speed doesn't drop to faster-by-carrier-pigeon. 
Broken cables affect it as well. For example, if one of the transatlantic links goes down, more traffic has to be pushed through another one, increasing the load on both the cable and all the routing equipment - which makes everything slower for everyone. Kinda like funnelling loads of water through a same-size pipe: some of it has to wait to move.
My ping took 28ms, download at 10.82Mbps and up at 1.02Mbps. That's pretty much the rates I pay for!
Broken cables affect it as well. For example, if one of the transatlantic links goes down, more traffic has to be pushed through another one, increasing the load on both the cable and all the routing equipment - which makes everything slower for everyone. Kinda like funnelling loads of water through a same-size pipe: some of it has to wait to move.
My ping took 28ms, download at 10.82Mbps and up at 1.02Mbps. That's pretty much the rates I pay for!@Janey1966 (24170)
• Carlisle, England
30 Jun 11
Thanks for your contribution..and fascinating it was too.
Cheers!
@millertime (1394)
• United States
30 Jun 11
I just did the test at 10:48pm here in S. Florida using Comcast broadband and my ping was 10ms, download speed 19.73Mbps, upload speed 4.26Mbps. That's also using a wireless home network too from my laptop. Not bad.
@hardworkinggurl (37062)
• United States
30 Jun 11
I just ran my test and saw that my downloads speed is 10.89 and my upload is 3.88. Which from my understanding with my ISP I am getting far more then I pay for. lol Very interesting to do this as my server says it is 50 miles from me and it took 11 seconds to do the test.
Therefore, I am super happy with my results. 
