For me, I've noticed that speed test websites don't give me a good picture. For example on this site the test always says my link is < 1Mb/sec. It's never given me anything more. So as I'm paying for a 2Mb link I'd be pretty pi**ed off if that was all I could get.
But there are various factors in the equation. Speed of your link, route to the test site and how busy the testing site is.
I think a good test (for reasonably advanced users) is to try a few torrents from a few different users. I'm pretty frequently able to max out my link and get >200KB/sec down and anything from 100KB/sec -< 200KB/sec up. The reason torrents get this is because I'm connecting to many different users, their traffic is coming over many different routes and the torrent app will keep on trying more users until my link is maxed out. Really the only bottleneck on a well seeded torrent should be my link. So if my link was really <1Mb/sec I'd expect to see torrents working at a max of about 128KB/s down.
Many users have problems configuring port forwarding and getting good seeds so this isn't a test for a novice. With an incorrectly configured setup I could get 20 - 30KB/sec and if I didn't know better I'd blame the link.
Last edited by mickoneill30; 19th July 2006 at 12:28 PM.
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