Is bt speedtester totally broken?

[Rik]

Comms is, and always has been, a black art.

[Bill]

Comms is, and always has been, a black art.

Tell me about it

It's only happened since I went on to FTTC. Previously both tbb and BT would give me a nice clean flat-topped graph on the network monitor, now the tbb one looks like it's heavily congested even at times when I know it won't be.

I can't help wondering if there's something different about the way the backhaul is "fed in" to the main network from a fibre connection, but I also can't help but know that I'm out of my depth

[Rik]

I think we all are, Bill. It's taken the best part of a decade to get to grips with ADSL technology - and that's just the BT staff.

[gyruss]

sooo is there a bt speedtester that actually works ever?

[Bill]

sooo is there a bt speedtester that actually works ever?

I'll concede that its reliability leaves something to be desired, but the standard one works for me:



edit- even the tbb one is behaving itself for me this morning:

[Baz]

its still iffy for me.sometimes I get a result athers not but I have noticed that using other testers I have got an increase in speed, up and down 

very welcome ....looks for the 'touch wood' smilie

[Rik]

WE don't have one yet, Baz, just use my head.

[gyruss]

Hmmz.

Right last night i got a decent speedtest result, it didn't want to know in firefox, nor opera.. and IE8 64-bit ... so opted then to try IE8 32-bit.. and it worked first time.

crazy.

[Bill]

Similar on the Mac. Opera is a no-no, Safari usually works and Camino seems fine. Haven't tried FireFox.

Probably poor Java coding.

[gyruss]

perhaps IE8 64-bit may have worked, but it seems to be constantly prompting me to re-install java for the speedtester, despite the java.com demo working fine to prove functionality present within the browser.. grrr.

IE8 32-bit i guess must be the base browser they want on a windozeZZzzz pc

One of these days i'm going to build a Linux machine from one of my older pc's and see how that goes.

[Bill]

perhaps IE8 64-bit may have worked, but it seems to be constantly prompting me to re-install java for the speedtester, despite the java.com demo working fine to prove functionality present within the browser.. grrr.

I have a vague recollection of someone (on tbb?) saying that Java for 64-bit apps isn't checked on Java.com and needs to be installed manually, so maybe IE8/64 is right.

But I can't find the post and my memory may well be at fault, so a look around the Java site may be in order.

(Can't easily do it here, it knows I'm on a Mac and seems to get unco-operative when I look for Windows stuff )

[zappaDPJ]

I wonder why when other speed tests indicate that my FTTC throughput is below 10 Mbp/s, BT's test returns an error on my line number? I'll put it down to coincidence for now but so far it's proved to be a guaranteed result... or non-result depending on your perspective 

[Rik]

I wonder if there's a database error, Zap. Might be worth asking support to check.

[zappaDPJ]

I don't think so Rik, it only ever occurs when other tests indicate very low throughput on the downstream. When throughput is high it always seem to return a result. It's probably coincidence but it's an annoying one as it means I can't provide an 'official' log of things.

[Rik]

BT covering their backs again I wonder?

[zappaDPJ]

I don't know, I really hope not, I'll keep testing.

[pctech]

Circuit throughput <= 10000 Kbps PRINT 'error'

[Rik]

Might be worth a chat with support to see if they've got any ideas, Zap.

[talos]

I've not been able to use the tester since the weekend, it just says testing error call your ISP

[DorsetBoy]

I've not been able to use the tester since the weekend, it just says testing error call your ISP

Haha, perhaps IDNet didn't just de-configured the other night they got moved to LLU   

[Bill]

No consolation or help to anybody, but it's working here and just given me one of the fastest tests I've ever had... followed less than a minute later by a 90 second PPP drop

[Rik]

Does anyone else wonder if, with all the job cuts at BT, they've cut too far and we are now paying the price?

[Gary]

Does anyone else wonder if, with all the job cuts at BT, they've cut too far and we are now paying the price?

There does seem to have been an extraordinary amount of failures in the BT network in the last few months, Rik. More so than just your usual faults 

[Rik]

Of course, they are also putting 21CN in at exchanges, just to add to the mess, but the number of BRAS failures seems unacceptably high to me.

[SSK]

Well, several weeks on from my initial post, the BT tester seems to have settled down, but for me the throughput  speeds reported would still appear to be unreliable.

For the past 5-6 weeks my connection rate has been17,784 Kbps with an IP profile 15,000 Kbps.

During that time I've done just over 30 bt speedtests and (with one exception) all have given throughput rates of well over 15,000 Kbps and many have been over 16,000 Kbps. For example, yesterday the bt test reported throughput as 17,010 Kbps and today it reported 15,891 Kbps.

Presuming real throughput can't be greater than the IP profile, one can only assume that the bt tester throughput speed is not reliable.

Over the same period, I've done several speed tests on both namesco & speedtest.net, and all have consistently given throughput speeds of just over 14,300 Kbps.

Despite what others might say about the bt test being more accurate, from my own results it would appear that the other speedtesters give more reliable (and more believable) results.

Sean