Issues
HEXUS.channel also got hold of Virgin Media's summary of the situation as it sees it:
The Issues with Speed Testers
- Web-based speedtesters invariably don't actually test throughput speed, they merely test how fast data is able to travel from one part of the internet to another.
- Web-based speedtesters cannot provide a reliable indication of true throughput speed - they are usually located 'on the internet' and thus data transfer from a speedtest site often needs to travel across many parts of the internet to get to the end user, causing delays which result in a reduced reading of throughput.
- Web-based speedtesters, like any site on the internet, are subject to congestion - if too many people are testing speeds at the same time, the result will be skewed as the speedtest site isn't able to send data fast enough.
- Many web-based speedtesters have not yet adapted their tests to faster broadband speeds. Speedtests work by sending a file to your computer and timing how long that takes. These files are called the 'payload' and with sizes as small as just 750KB in some cases, the files are too small to give an accurate speed reading. This results in very unpredictable results as small payload files on fast connections can complete in a fraction of a second so any delay due to traffic or congestion can form a large percentage of this time, resulting in a bad test.
- Web-based speedtesters invariably run on one machine and test the speed received by that machine. They will not know of other computers, games consoles and other devices using the connection, thus the results can be a fraction of the real throughput speed.
- Software speed tests rely on computer performance thus can be affected by slow or badly configured computers, giving inaccurate results.
- Only a hardware speed test solution which attaches to the customers modem, such as the hardware adopted by Ofcom and developed by SamKnows (a broadband comparison site), are able to test the speed of a connection directly (eliminating the issue of a shared connection and any limitations of a customer's PC) and due to the range of tests that can be conducted, can give a far more accurate assessment of real world broadband performance (vs just speed).