Is bt speedtester totally broken?

[Rik]

You are not alone, Sean, the BT test doesn't seem to have been updated to cope well with fibre...

[SSK]

You are not alone, Sean, the BT test doesn't seem to have been updated to cope well with fibre...

As I'm on ADSL2+, it seems it doesn't cope well with that either!


Presumably, it's really only suitable for the 'standard' older ADSL product?

Sean

[Rik]

It does seem so, though it was the modification for fibre speeds which seemed to break it.

[Bill]

Presuming real throughput can't be greater than the IP profile

Yes, it can... the BT tester appears to bypass various things, including whatever normally restricts your speed to your profile.

[Rik]

Thus proving that profiles are totally unnecessary...

[Bill]

I don't think that's ever been in doubt, except to reduce the amount that BT have to spend on backhaul capacity.

[armadillo]

........ except to reduce the amount that BT have to spend on backhaul capacity.

[Rik]

[armadillo]

 

[SSK]

Yes, it can... the BT tester appears to bypass various things, including whatever normally restricts your speed to your profile.

If it bypasses the things that normally restrict speed it's not particularly useful as a real speedtester, though I suppose it may possibly be useful as a diagnostic test for BT.  So the conclusion is that if one wants to measure one's real-world download speed don't use the BT tester.

Unfortunately, however, BT appear to use it more as an excuse to say nothing is wrong rather than as a tool to diagnose what might be wrong. For example:
Customer to ISP - My downloads from lots of different sites have recently become very slow.
ISP to customer - Have you tried the BT speedtester?
Customer to ISP - Yes, and the speeds seem okay with that.
ISP to customer - Well, that proves your problem is nothing to do with BT.
Customer to ISP - But what if the slow download problem is caused by the parts of the BT equipment or protocols that are bypassed by the BT speedtest?
ISP to customer - ??

Sean

[Bill]

If it bypasses the things that normally restrict speed it's not particularly useful as a real speedtester, though I suppose it may possibly be useful as a diagnostic test for BT.  So the conclusion is that if one wants to measure one's real-world download speed don't use the BT tester.

To be fair to BT (ouch, that hurt) it always has been intended as a diagnostic tool not a "my line is faster than yours" speed tester. That's why you can't use it more often than hourly (it used to be three hourly), and I suppose it makes some sense to bypass as many extraneous (to BT) potential bottlenecks as possible.

After all, if the BT bit shows up as OK but tests via the ISP are slow, it's not unreasonable for them to say "Not our problem sunshine", annoying though it might be.

[armadillo]

No doubt someone will be able to explain why my following conclusion is wrong. But....

It seems to me that when you use the BT speedtester (by putting speedtester.bt.com into a browser), you are still connected through your own ISP and so are not bypassing anything except perhaps the limit imposed by the profile. You still go through your usual ISP's routers and lines. And I bet the downloads count towards your usage allowance. Sure, you are downloading from a dedicated BT server but the only part of the system unique to BT is that server and the connection between it and your ISP's network. I am not clear what it shows except what throughput is achieved via your own ISP from a known server for which BT are responsible.

When we did our BT speed tests by disconnecting from the ISP and logging onto the net via bt_test@startup_domain, that really was bypassing all the ISP's equipment and logging straight into a bt setup.

Please tell me why this is wrong, if it is.

FWIW, I almost always get a lower throughput from speedtester.bt.com than I do from normal real-world downloads unless I use speedtester in the middle of the night.

[Rik]

I don't think it is wrong, Dill, the only thing which I think can be 'ignored' by the BT tester is the profile.

[armadillo]

Thanks Rik.

[kinmel]

Yes, it can... the BT tester appears to bypass various things, including whatever normally restricts your speed to your profile.

BT Speedtest seems to obey the profile on it's system for your line and to limit throughput accordingly.

For four days this week my BT Speedtest profile was stuck at 2.5 and my BTspeedtest download result was 2334, even though BT's BRAS systems insisted my line was already set at 3.5 

Yesterday the fault was escalated within BT and the speedtest systems had the proper 3.5 profile forced onto that system. After that the the Speedtester showed the 3.5 profile and the download was at 3486.  My Sync/SNR remain exactly the same.

I am not sure there is anyone, anywhere that understands exactly how BT's line management system works.

[Rik]

Especially within BT, Alan.

[Glenn]

I haven't successfully completed a BT speedtest, in over 2 years, they always fail after inputting my phone number.

[Rik]

Try using the right one then.

[FritzBox]

I haven't successfully completed a BT speedtest, in over 2 years, they always fail after inputting my phone number.

My ISP has asked me to do

Code Select Expand

http://speedtester.bt.com/ speedtests over 3 days with regards to getting my line reset
Trouble is the poxy thing always errors for me, tried it now in four different browsers

Is there problems with it?

[Simon]

Usually, yes.   

[Steve]

What I don't understand is why it works for some occasionally but for others it never works at all.

[pctech]

At a guess from supporting some java based apps for a living, it could be Java version or if they have things such as NoScript installed.

[FritzBox]

At a guess from supporting some java based apps for a living, it could be Java version or if they have things such as NoScript installed.

My Java is up to date and I don't have NoScript installed

[Glenn]

Since I have moved to an FTTC line, the speedtest now seems to work. 

[pctech]

My Java is up to date and I don't have NoScript installed

Don't suppose you would stick a screengrab up would you? (with all personal information obscured of course)