{"id":1733,"date":"2017-08-15T16:16:36","date_gmt":"2017-08-15T16:16:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mtin.net\/blog\/?p=1733"},"modified":"2018-03-21T04:28:16","modified_gmt":"2018-03-21T04:28:16","slug":"the-problem-with-speedtests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.mtin.net\/blog\/the-problem-with-speedtests\/","title":{"rendered":"The problem with speedtests"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Imagine this scenario. Outside your house, the most awesome super highway has been built. \u00a0It has a speed limit of 120 Mile Per Hour. \u00a0You calculate at those speeds you can get to and from work 20 minutes earlier. Life is good. \u00a0Monday morning comes, you hop in your 600 horsepower Nissan GT-R, put on some new leather driving gloves, and crank up some good driving music. \u00a0Your pull onto the dedicated on-ramp from your house and are quickly cruising at 120 Miles an hour. You make it into work before most anyone else. Life is good. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Near the end of the <\/span>week, you notice more and more of your neighbors and co-workers using this new highway. \u00a0Things are still fast, but you can’t get up to speed like you could earlier in the week. \u00a0As you ponder <\/span>why you notice you are coming up on the off-ramp to your work. \u00a0Traffic is backed up. Everyone is trying to get to the same place. \u00a0As you are waiting in the line to get off the superhighway, you notice folks passing you by going on down the road at high rates of speed. \u00a0You surmise your off-ramp must be congested because it is getting used more now.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Speedtest servers work the same way. A speedtest\u00a0server is a destination on the information\u00a0super-highway. Man, there is an oldie term. \u00a0To understand how speedtest servers work we need a quick understanding of how the Internet works. \u00a0 The internet is basically a bunch of virtual cities connected together. \u00a0Your local ISP delivers a signal to you via Wireless, Fiber, or some sort of media. When it leaves your house it travels to the ISP’s equipment and is aggregated with your neighbours\u00a0and sent over faster lines to larger cities. It’s just like a road system. You may get access via a gravel road, which turns into a 2 lane blacktop, which then may turn into a 4 lane highway, and finally a super-highway. \u00a0The roads you take depend on where you are going. Your ISP may not have much control over how the traffic flows once it leaves their network.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bottlenecks can happen anywhere. Anything from fiber\u00a0optic cuts, oversold capacity, routing issues, and plain old unexpected usage. Why are these important? All of these can affect your speedtest\u00a0results and can be totally out of control of your ISP and you. \u00a0They can also be totally your ISP’s fault. They can also be your fault, just like your car can be. \u00a0An underpowered router can be struggling to keep up with your connection. Much like a moped on the above super-highway can’t keep up with a 600 horsepower car, your\u00a0router might not be able to keep up either. \u00a0Other things can cause issues such as computer viruses, and low performing components.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Just about any network can become a speedtest.net node or a node with some of the other speedtest sites. \u00a0These networks have to meet minimum requirements, but there is no indicator of how utilized these speedtest servers are. \u00a0A network could put up one and it’s 100 percent utilized when you go running a speedtest. This doesn’t mean your\u00a0ISP is slow, just the off-ramp to that speedtest server is slow.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The final thing we want to talk about is the utilization of your internet pipe from your ISP. \u00a0This is something most don’t take into consideration. \u00a0Let’s go back to our on-ramp analogy. \u00a0Your ISP is selling you a connection to the information super-highway. \u00a0 Say they are selling you a 10 meg download connection. \u00a0If you have a device in your house streaming an HD Netflix stream, which is typically 5 megs or so, that means you only have 5 megs available for a speedtest while that HD stream is happening. Speedtest only test your current available capacity. \u00a0Many folks think a speedtest somehow stops all the traffic on your network, runs the test, and starts the traffic. It doesn’t work that way. A speedtest tests the available capacity at that point in time. \u00a0The same is true for any point between you and the speedtest server. \u00a0Remember our earlier analogy about slowing down when you got to work because there were so many people trying to get there. \u00a0They exceeded the capacity of that destination. \u00a0However, that does not mean your connection is necessarily slow because people were zooming past you on their way to less congested destinations.<\/p>\n

This is why speedtest results should\u00a0be taken with a grain of salt. They are a useful tool, but not an absolute. A speedtest server is just a destination. \u00a0That destination can have bottlenecks, but others don’t. \u00a0Even after this long article, there are many other factors which can affect Internet speed. Things we didn’t touch on like Peering, the technology used, speed limits, and other things can also affect your internet speed to destinations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Imagine this scenario. Outside your house, the most awesome super highway has been built. \u00a0It has a speed limit of 120 Mile Per Hour. \u00a0You calculate at those speeds you can get to and from work 20 minutes earlier. Life is good. \u00a0Monday morning comes, you hop in your 600 horsepower Nissan GT-R, put on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[17,156,2],"tags":[464,463,462],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mtin.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/images-1.jpg?fit=310%2C163","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6VLMf-rX","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2020,"url":"http:\/\/www.mtin.net\/blog\/mtin-announces-forthcoming-2018-pricing-changes\/","url_meta":{"origin":1733,"position":0},"title":"MTIN announces forthcoming 2018 Pricing changes","author":"j2sw","date":"February 6, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"In an effort to better serve customers MTIN is changing some of our pricing structure. We are moving toward a limited availability structure to guarantee availability to our core customer base while recognizing a one-size-fits-all solution isn't for everyone. Tier 1: Customers without a service contract or retainer $109 per\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"pricing\"","block_context":{"text":"pricing","link":"http:\/\/www.mtin.net\/blog\/tag\/pricing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3221,"url":"http:\/\/www.mtin.net\/blog\/where-the-is-a-wisp-there-is-a-way\/","url_meta":{"origin":1733,"position":1},"title":"Where the is a WISP there is a way","author":"j2sw","date":"April 2, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"While driving to #usmum2019 I happened to see this lone antenna sticking up on a house off of I30 near Dallas.\u00a0 Being a \"WISP guy\" I am probably just a handful of folks who recognize such things.\u00a0 If you are a wisp and think you can't compete in urban areas\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Wireless"","block_context":{"text":"Wireless","link":"http:\/\/www.mtin.net\/blog\/category\/wireless\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mtin.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/IMG_2838.jpeg?fit=900%2C1200&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mtin.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/IMG_2838.jpeg?fit=900%2C1200&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mtin.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/IMG_2838.jpeg?fit=900%2C1200&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1553,"url":"http:\/\/www.mtin.net\/blog\/technology-and-our-lives\/","url_meta":{"origin":1733,"position":2},"title":"Technology and our lives","author":"j2sw","date":"May 2, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I saw two very different examples of how technology affects families today. The first was a very positive experience with my wife's parents. Their satellite dish had become out of alignment. Amber and I were able to go over in the morning and quickly do some adjustments on the dish\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"lifestyle\"","block_context":{"text":"lifestyle","link":"http:\/\/www.mtin.net\/blog\/tag\/lifestyle\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":104,"url":"http:\/\/www.mtin.net\/blog\/indianapolis-indiana-co-location-specials\/","url_meta":{"origin":1733,"position":3},"title":"Indianapolis Indiana Co-Location Specials","author":"j2sw","date":"August 13, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Indy Single Server Co-Location $89 per month 1U rack Space 10 Meg Internet connection 1 120 Volt Power Outlet with A+B Power Free Monitoring of Server Indy Single Router\/Switch Co-Location $79 per month 1U Rack Space 1 120 Volt power Outlet with A+B Power Free Monitoring Indy Raw Rack Space\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Data Center"","block_context":{"text":"Data Center","link":"http:\/\/www.mtin.net\/blog\/category\/data-center\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2916,"url":"http:\/\/www.mtin.net\/blog\/flash-briefing-fcc-news-cambium-millimeter-wave\/","url_meta":{"origin":1733,"position":4},"title":"Flash Briefing: FCC news, cambium millimeter wave","author":"j2sw","date":"March 6, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Your j2Podcast flash briefing for https:\/\/www.multichannel.com\/news\/sen-thune-schedules-rural-broadband-hearing The Fcc is having a hearing on Rural broadband on March 12th. https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2019\/03\/04\/house-democrat-net-neutrality-bill-planned\/ House to introduce a bill to reinstate net neutrality https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/fcc-rural-broadband-959604\/ https:\/\/docs.fcc.gov\/public\/attachments\/DA-19-115A1.pdf To access some of the funds, rural carriers must \u201csignificantly expand\u201d access to internet service with download and upload speeds\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "FlashBriefing"","block_context":{"text":"FlashBriefing","link":"http:\/\/www.mtin.net\/blog\/category\/flashbriefing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mtin.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/session-clipart-CLIPART_OF_18552_SM_2.jpg?fit=640%2C480&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3307,"url":"http:\/\/www.mtin.net\/blog\/small-cells-and-hybrid-networks-for-wisps-part-1\/","url_meta":{"origin":1733,"position":5},"title":"Small Cells and hybrid networks for WISPs: Part 1","author":"j2sw","date":"April 7, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Update. Due to some weirdness with a server move this article has been updated at http:\/\/blog.j2sw.com\/2019\/04\/25\/small-cells-and-hybrid-networks-for-wisps-part-1\/ The never-ending goal of any Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP) is how to get ever-increasing levels of bandwidth to clients. The always increasing demands, by customers,\u00a0 on WISPs, and ISPs, in general, are becoming\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "5G"","block_context":{"text":"5G","link":"http:\/\/www.mtin.net\/blog\/category\/wireless\/5g\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mtin.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Screen-Shot-2019-04-07-at-12.43.46-AM.png?fit=639%2C989&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mtin.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1733"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mtin.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mtin.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mtin.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mtin.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1733"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.mtin.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2158,"href":"http:\/\/www.mtin.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1733\/revisions\/2158"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mtin.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mtin.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mtin.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mtin.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}