How fast is your broadband?

Ok, so you've all read the hype from the internet providers... "Up to 8mb download speed" bla bla bla...

It also says 120mph on my Speedo, but I’m pretty sure my van won't get anywhere near, even if there weren't speed limits on our UK roads, and no congestion to boot!!.....

So, what’s all this hype about....

Well it just so happens that they do the same as the car manufacturers do with speedometers.

The theoretical maximum speed, assuming your computer is highly tuned and all things are equal... and ...  this is the thing they don't make as clear as they could....  they assume you live 2 feet away from the telephone exchange (excludes cable customers).

So what’s actually happening is that noise on the line (British rail and leaves spring to mind), and how long the wire is from your house to the telephone exchange and how many connections there are! all reduce your broadband speed.  So the further away you are from your telephone exchange the weaker the signal is and the more susceptible it is to noise, and the slower your broadband speed is.

So, once your signal gets to the exchange, you also share the little gizmo with up to 50 other people (contention ratios). So if the guy down the road is downloading pirated stuff like it's going out of fashion you and up to 48 others are all fighting for a bit of speed. So each node has a maximum speed that up to 50 users have to share.

Is there anything you can do to make your internet perform like a good-en?

Yes, and er... well yes... and err... no....

• Move house and get cable
• Move to that shiny new housing estate in Milton Keynes where they are fitting fibre optics to each house
• Move house closer to the telephone exchange
• Make sure you're using good quality extension leads
• Better still, don't use extension leads
• Oh, and move house.
• Cut the phone lines of all the other people on your node (just kidding)  (Honest) (Don't do it) (Please don't)
• Surf during the day when the kids are at school.

There is one more thing that may help, but it's a little technical, I will post more details later.

So how can you check your broadband speed?

If you have a router, it will tell you your "up" and "down" stream speeds, this is the actual maximum speed your internet provider can give you reliably.  That’s just half the story, remember the (Up to) 50 other users, will also slow down your broadband speed.

Visit this web link below to find out the speed of your broadband (at the time you test - it will fluctuate with the time of day - remember the other 50 users)

http://www.speedtest.net/

Select the little pyramid on the UK and watch the Speedo do its thing.

As you can see, hopefully, we are on a 10mb connection with a download speed of 9.847mbps and an upload speed of 0.732mbps. (Check out this article for an explanation of mbps / kbps etc..)

I hope this help clear a few things up, if not, or if you have any questions or comments please sign up for an account and post your comments.

Thanks for your time.

Regards

Steve