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What is the simplest way to check my actual broadband connection speed?

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Every such test I've ever tried is hopelessly optimistic. They report the peak speeds, even though that peak may have been achieved for a very brief fraction of the test. Average throughput (total data / test time) would be far more appropriate. But the providers want to make their numbers look good. Truth? Not so much. – JRobert Sep 19 '10 at 15:28
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3 Answers

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www.speedtest.net

Or google broadband speed test.

rough idea may be ascertained to what your modem thinks your speed is if you poke around the interface. Some tell you the connected speed. Speed tests are inaccurate as it depends on what you're hopping through, but give a rough idea.

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perfect - thanks! – NogginTheNog Dec 28 '09 at 22:12
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Speedtest is crap. Seriously. They consistently overrate my connection speed by 15Mbps.

As near as I can tell, many ISPs (I have Cox Cable internet) use modems that do compression. Speedtest.net appears to use test-data that is highly repetitive.

The end result is they often overestimate your connection's speed by as much as 100%!

DSLreports and TestMy.net both use largely incompressible data, and seem far more accurate. I still get a fair bit of variance between their results (and variance between the different types of test), but they're in a far more believable regime than speedtest.net.

(Copied from my answer here.)

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up vote 0 down vote

Try Bandwidthplace.

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