BT Speedtester Lite Beta

[.Griff.]

http://speedtest.btcentralplus.com/beta/

Shame it's absolutely useless.

[Rik]

I'm curious why they're introducing it, Griff. As you say, it gives no really useful information, and, for that matter, gave me a throughout above my profile.

[zappaDPJ]

I like it, it gives me a 39.63 Mbps download speed

[Rik]

I reckon BT are going to use it to 'prove' they've increased throughput.

[Baz]

saw that earlier but wasnt sure whether to try it as theres some warning about BT not been responsible if it causes any damage 

[sat_mad]

At least it doesn't require Java to use.

[FritzBox]

A BT Speedtester that actually works for me. Brilliant

[Technical Ben]

So it's a standard download tester, without the bells and whistles the normal BT profile system has?
A broken speedtest.net then? 

[Rik]

No, it's not broken, Ben, just useless.

[pctech]

I suspect they'll ask you to type in your number when it comes out of beta as even though its 2011 BT can't do things by IP address it would seem (and yes I know the IP is allocated by the ISP) but they should be able to communicate with the ISP's systems to determine which connection the source IP is allocated to.

[Technical Ben]

You trust them with that information!?   

[pctech]

Not really but its a bit backward that they don't do it now.

[Polchraine]

It is fast and simple ...

It could be there as a quick one off test and see if the results are "sensible" - if not then a full speedtest is needed.   No bells, no whistles, no fancy graphics, login, server selection, advertising &c just fast and simple.

[pctech]

I do wish they'd sort out the servers that power the full BT test though, they do take ages to do lookups.

[Rik]

I suspect the problem is less with the test servers and more with the verification, Mitch.

[pctech]

I think you are bang on there Rik.

Any ISP I've spoken to moans about the speed on their side too,

[Rik]

BT hand out resources with all the good grace of an Army quartermaster.

[Technical Ben]

Does the original actually get data from the exchange? I would guess it's a rather basic system for diagnostics. Your not going to install expensive hardware to ping an exchange or get a status request at any rate. But while slow can be forgive, broken is not!

[Lance]

The existing BT speedtest must get some details from the exchange, such as sync speed.

[talos]

Works for me
                           The usual BT tester dont

[pctech]

I gather the existing one reads data from the BRAS.