Speed Test Upgrade / New Features?

[blacknight]

We are currently working on some new features and enhancements to the site and would appreciate your feedback.

What kind of features would you like to see?

[ham radio]

Hi

Any chance we have on drop list peramnet .ie

please please thank you ham radio

[blacknight]

Heh

I forgot we'd made that new feature live today!

I'll see if I can get that added

Any other ISPs we've omitted?

[ham radio]

hi

thank you for put permanet .ie what about kerry broadband ???

ham radio

[Sean]

Nice to see an ISP & speed selection addition to the speed test page.

The only other ISP's I can think of at the top of my head are Perlico, Gaelic, UTV and the mobile broadband providers O2, Vodafone and Three. On the other hand, I think it's worth leaving out the less common DSL providers, such as where one needs to take up their telephone service for their DSL package.

Another few speeds worth adding are 3Mb and 6Mb, as pretty much all the Eircom DSL resellers offer a choice of 1Mb, 2Mb, 3Mb, 4Mb and 6Mb.

If it's not too difficult to implement, I would suggest adding one more drop-down so that they would function as follows:

Select your connection - Dial-up, DSL, Wireless, Mobile 3G/HSPA/GPRS, Cable, Fibre, etc

Select your ISP - List of ISPs offering the above connection, e.g. O2, Vodafone & Three if Mobile is selected in the first drop-down.

Speed - Based on the connection, e.g. 512k, 1Mb, 2Mb, 3Mb, 4Mb, 5Mb, 6Mb, 8Mb, 12Mb, 16Mb & 24Mb if DSL is selected from the first drop-down.

If enough people perform the speed tests, assuming they chose the correct connection, ISP & speed, it will be interesting to see how each does on average, e.g. how well Eircom's 3Mb DSL service performs against Digiweb's Wireless 3Mb service.

[howfast]

Hi Blacknight

I know I've asked before but in case you've misplaced the details here goes again.

Could you consider adding an isp rating option which members could link to from the speedtest result page. I think you could use forum members’ ip address to verify their isp.

I’d recommend rating each isp on speed, support, reliability, and price using a simple scale of say 1 to 5 as follows –

ISP name

Speed
1 very slow
2 slow
3 average
4 fast
5 just right

Support
1 very poor
2 poor
3 average
4 good
5 excellent

Reliabiltiy
1 never works
2 works sometimes
3 few outages
4 pretty reliable
5 just works

Price
1 very expensive
2 quite expensive
3 average
4 good value
5 great value


BTW I also agree with Sean, could you include a 3Mbps option in the dropdown. While I would dearly like to get a 4 or 6Mbps connection I'm not prepared to pay the ripoff prices. 3Mbps is the most I can justify shelling out for without that ripoff feeling nagging too much.


Another thought, maybe there could be a listing of the daily fastest test results obtained in each speed category. The list could show time, isp, connection speed and test result speed.

Hope this is not too big a wish list but somehow I don't think you'll be phased if you decide my suggestions are good ideas.

Keep up the great work

Howfast

[foggy_lad]

my results are saying speeds are good but the time it takes to load pages when browsing and speeds downloading smallish(<50mb) including the speed test makes me think clearwire have got around it somehow and are manipulating my results IMPOSSIBLE i know its all just weird

[blacknight]

Some nice feedback guys!

I'll see what we can do.

For the ISP rating - I think that might need to be done separately, as I don't want the speed test page to become totally overloaded. A lot of people go directly into it - run the test and move on.

I'll have a chat with our developers and see what they think!

Keep the suggestions coming!

Michele

[foggy_lad]

rude of me not to mention how much i like the test and adding isp and speed a nice touch!

[blacknight]

Originally Posted by foggy_lad

rude of me not to mention how much i like the test and adding isp and speed a nice touch!

Glad you approve

[blacknight]

We've now made it so that you don't need to be logged in to provide the ISP data

[Inchmurrin]

Nice one on the selection of ISP on the speed test. Results over time will be interesting

Just one point though.

I'm with Permanet, on their 1792 kbps download speed - and there are quite a lot of wireless ISP thats offer 1500. Could be an idea to add some more granularity between 1Mbps and 2Mbps?

[blacknight]

Thanks for that feedback

Which speed options should we include?

[Inchmurrin]

I think:

896 (for permanet users)
1500
1512 (for permanet users)
1792 (for permanet users)
2560 (for permanet users)

thanks

[John Griffin]

Originally Posted by blacknight

We are currently working on some new features and enhancements to the site and would appreciate your feedback.

What kind of features would you like to see?

I'm trying to evaluate Mobile Broadband from Vodafone, O2 and 3 Ireland. I'd love to be able to run a continuous test for say three hours with each device, getting good comparative charts over time. It's very hard to compare apples with apples using snapshots at different times. Any chance of such a service?

[John Griffin]

I'm trying to evaluate Mobile Broadband from Vodafone, O2 and 3 Ireland. I'd love to be able to run a continuous test for say three hours with each device, getting good comparative charts over time. It's very hard to compare apples with apples using snapshots at different times. Any chance of such a service?