As you may have noticed, the broadband speed check has been given a new design, a nice big button, and has been expanded so that it can provide details about your exchange (such as the maximum speed you could theoretically get, and how far away from it you live) as well as information about products that are faster and/or cheaper than your current deal.
Please leave us any feedback here.
I don’t believe my result. I’m suffering what seems like slow broadband on a BT line that is meant to offer up to 8MB (your site says upt to 6.3 MB and that sounds reasonable). But your test gave a speed of 27.8 the first tiem and 21.8 the second time!
Stay away from virgin media,i am a 4 mb user,and i am getting just over a dial up connection.This is fraud in a big way,how many of you out there are paying for a broadband that is realy disgustingly slow.
Virgin Media has gone to the dogs!
in the evening I’m lucky to get 1MB download bandwidth and im on 10MBS!
getup at 6AM and its great lol
can you add Sky broadband to th list of providers please?
hi,
is your speed test on dedicated servers, as it seems very low, only give me 2.5mb
im with virgin media on the 20mb service, i have tried approx 10 different speed test sites and they all say between 18 - 20mb,
there was another one but it was a complete joke, said i had a dsl conection of 300mb and my transfere rate was 32mb per second, still the most reliable way of assesing speed is to download 3 -4 large files at once from a server you know is good and stable add all the tranfere rates together, take of 10% for overheads, then work out your speed from the tranfer rate, simple and it works,
i wish you well with your speed test and i look forward to seeing what mod you are doing to it and i will try it again soon
cheers
chris
well i’m getting 2mb with virgin so thats spot-on and 4.8mb with tiscali so not to bad , as for why i have 2 connections , signed up with tiscali only to be port throttled to zero
when using p2p ! be warned p2p includes gaming as i found out the hard way . so we all know Mr Branson has killed the best service provider Telewest but what other options are there ? both tiscali and bt port throttle and now virgin are adding to the list
and how long till the proper sky service reaches your area !! think gaming and Mr Branson are doomed !!!
Good, quick and concise test. I can only get BT satellite broadband and would appreciate info on both download and upload. Do I have any satellite options in NI?
unbelievable 15.5 meg average on a 4meg connection! checked 5 times
NTL in Cardiff is awful, I pay for 10Meg and get under 1/2 a meg in the evening. But they wont admit it. Even though the engineer has seen it her in the house!
:|
I have a contract with Pipex at 8meg with the local exchange in Kirriemuir limited to 5.4meg. The Genie test correlates with a number of other speed test sites and so far I am barely reaching dial up speed, except at 2am when I can get closer to 2meg. Advertising for nearly all providers borders on the fraudulent and at best is completely misleading. Broadband is just getting like dial up again overloaded and no where near the advertised specification. Where does the problem occur is it an exchange limited feature or poor lines ( I am 900 metres from exchange as the crow flies but maybe the is 900km away) or is my PC the key issue)
I don’t know what to make of the speed test. My router says it is 1184kbps AT THE SAME TIME as your speed test says it is 240.4kb. They can’t both be right so which is it.
Confusing unless someone can explain it
Hi there,
Same probs with sky broadband as everyone else, I waited nearly three weeks for my router because someone forgot to order it, used MAC code when i switched from Virgin, it took me nearly 8 weeks to get virgin cancelled, i had major probs with them, constant disconnections, horrible staff etc etc, but back to sky, had tv with sky for years with no probs, switched to their unlimited £5.00 per month phone service - excellent saving a fortune - recommended, took their connect broadband for special offer £5.00 per month £20.00 activation and free router, one day i lost my internet service with virgin, phoned them about 10 times before they could confirm that sky had taken over the line, i phoned sky was told equipment had been sent out, somebody cocked up!!, staff were very freindly and on the ball from sky except one, i was put though to technical help, clearly at the other end of the world, i spent 10 minutes explaining that i had no router and no username or password but could i set up a manual connection using my existing adsl modem as sky had blocked virgin from my line, after repeting several items several times i was put on hold for about five mins, he came back and asked me to plug my wireless router in that i had recieved from sky!!!, i again explained everything calmly and was then told after being put on hold again that he could help me as he did not know how to do a manual connection, i again told hime that i knew how to do it and i needed my username and password, eventually after nearly 20 minutes i told him he was about as much use as a ashtray on a motorbike which he did not understand and hung up.
Move on nearly three weeks and another 10 or so calls i get my router, plug it in really easy and i on the net very very quick compared to virgin when surfing, went to downlaod and nothing no uploads nothing, did the port forwarding thing and manual set up the ip address etc, still very slow, and it kept disconnecting me? How always on?? i bought wireless dongle thing and moved the router to my main telephnoe socket now i do not get cut off as much but can only average around 1mb speed on the 8mb service, phoned and requested the 16mb service for £10.00, that went live last week according to a letter anyway, tried several tests including this one and guess what i get an average now of 200kb, the other night i managed to get 1.2mb but 10 mins later it was back down to 400kb.
sorry about ranting on and i hope people can understand this, sky in my experience is a good company 100 times better than virgin or talk talk, but this internet thing they jumped in with two feet hopefully it will be as good as there phone and tv services but they have got 10 months to prove it or its bye bye from me.
I am going now to vent my spleen to sky on the phone.
talktalk do not talk, their technical support responce is awful,on average 20-30 mins. I do not mind paying 10p a minute for help, unfortunately help is very hard to get from their call centres. So many times I have been told level 2 support will phone me back, they never do. my problem is, I am continually disconnected from the internet. tonight my speed test is 115 kps it is supposed to be up to 8mbs
BT did a pre-contract line test and said we would get 1MB download. It rarely runs over 200kbps, often less than 100kbps.
Your site recommends that my location will bet ‘up to 8MB’.
Total Bullshit! You are probably all in this Arthur Daly computer con industry together!
38.9Mb????????????? on a 16 Mb connection i dont think so!
Orange broadband I dont think so 2meg with Onspeed and still only get 663 kb after my contract runs out i’m off ,really cheesed off I feel as if everyones on the make…great speed test though.
VIRGIN = RIP-OFF keep reading about how they are striving to achieve a better service, most people should be getting close to the 8Mbps….. I never ever connect at more than 5.1Mbps, which it is showing now as I type this, but your speed test has just returned a very slow 89.7 Kb ……. !!!!!!!!
Someone cpmmented above about 38.9Mb from 16Mb connection, wireless connection makes a huge difference too, a PC I use at someone elses place has a 16Mb price structure, they are always on 48Mb connection, stuff flies in and out before you touch the keys….. AMAZING…..
But I unfortunately go for trusting mysupplier….. MUPPETT comes to mind, guess I’ll go to the suggested alternatives your site listed after the test……
Many thanks for this - accurate - tester… Tried a few before and they had such varying results over 3 consecutive tests, your results only fluctuated by .01kb over 3 tests.
I do believe my laptop on dial-up is far quicker than this configuration…..
Hello,
I think your calculations are fishy.
I have a 4Mb ADSL max line.
The nearest cable TV is in Edinburgh.
Oh well.
My results
————-
Your speed test result: 170.5 Mb
According to BT wholesale, your line should be able to support a 2.0 Mbps ADSL connection via ADSL max
The following services are available to you: ADSL MAX
Virgin Media cable
Be Broadband LLU
I doubt the readings given. My speed was measured at 1.1 Mb. I know there is considerable variation in the speeds given by different speed checkers, but I used 5 others before this and 5 others after this. They all gave results between 1.7 and 1.9, about what I normally get on my 2 Mb connection.
The maximum possible is also a bit doubtful. It may be supplied by BT wholesale but I suspect it is a calculated figure not a tested one, and it is based on the straight line distance from the exchange. I know my wiring is not straight line, and also that BT wired up my local exchange with aluminium cables, which degrade a broadband signal faster. I suspect they are calculating using straight line distance and assuming copper local loop, which in my case would be way out!
OK,my router says 8011kbps, tried lots of net based speedtests which say from 340 kbps tp 11000kbps .
Why is that ?
Had Bt test the line (engineer came round ) says it is just over 8meg
Are these tests inacurate? which is correct?
Its human nature ,I just need to know
What a bunch of idiots they must think the public are,Virgin media has now changed its help line to 0906 a
premium rate #,and they try to keep you on the phone as long as they possibly can.Slow speeds,yep they turn the buffers down,as soon as youve spent £10 to 15 quid trying to fix your comp which has nothing wrong with it anyway.They turn the buffers up for a short while then down they go again.I had an email saying they had found a fault with my modem,and would i ring the help line,”i told them no,why dont you just come and fix the modem.”Never heard from them again.My speed 4Mb,600kbs to 1Mb if i’m lucky.
STAY WELL AWAY FROM VERGIN MEDIA,DONT JOIN IT.
Have spent several months on the phone with BT tech. hepline as my speed (on the option 3 = around 8mb) drops every single evening at 6.30pm to between 170-350kbps!!!!! and that’s how it stayes until 1am. every time I call I get tons of apologies, promises of help and inability of the employees to find my previous notes. I’m so incredibly tired of all this issue…..a bt engineer come around and confirming that the line is ok during the day so the bt helpline should sort it out on their side. has anyone had similar problem????? I re-iterate - slow speed in the evening on 8mb bt broadband. To make the matters worse I have had my case closed several times now and I’ve completely lost the count of the number of the calls I’ve made and how many times I was promised to get a call back, which never materialised. Surely there either must be a solution or something that can be done about this! I always pay my BT bills, and as you know they are not the cheapest. And of course to add to the injury I don’t get paid for the hours I spend on the calls with them nor any compensation for the energy and nerves that I loose during those hours!!!!!!!!
you all sure you’re measuring it right?
I’m on 10mb virgin and get 1.2Mbps out of evening hours, which is the full 10Mb (x8 bit’s to bytes convertion). I’ve had 8Mb adsl and got 800kbps which is sh t hot too. in the evening on virgin it can drop to 500kbps, but thats contention with the street..
just waiting for 20mb to rollout now
If you are going for broadband,dont go for virgin medea.I have a 4Mb speed,only troble is,on a good day i’m lucky to get over 1Mb most of the time its down in the Kbs.There help line No is a 0906 premium rate No,some calls cost a pound a minute.
If you want to get ripped off then join it,if not stay well away from it.
I have created a petition on the government web page for No 10 downing street,for broadband providers who do not give a fair service for the money you pay.When you phone these people’s help lines 9 out of ten you cannot understand what the person is saying to you.They keep you on the phone for as long as possible.Then it turns out its not your computer
its something else.
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/internetspeed/
The above address takes you to the patition i placed on the No 10 downing street site,in ref to bad internet providers.If you have a complaint about an internet provider this is the place to go and air your views.
I have a 20 MB connection with Virgin Media and I’m lucky to get 1MB at peak times. My upload speeds are more than often faster than my download which is a waste as I don’t upload unless you count sending e-mail. I only upgraded to 20MB because my 4MB was getting worse than dial up. The help desk is worse than useless and appear to work to a script with stock answers for everything which is of no use to anyone. I also have to ring a few times until I can get someone who I can understand and can understand me. They now charge a fortune to ring them even though the issues are on there side. I have had 3 engineers out in the last month which is a total waste of their time as they know as well as we do that the issue is with Virgin Media. I think its time Richard Branson came out and explained what is going on. I am currently using the small claims court on a monthly basis to get my subscription back as they are not supplying the services I am paying for. They cannot even get close enough to contest.
I have just added my name to your petition Bernie
I can’t make your speed test work. I’m using IE on an iMac and have enabled all cookies. I just keep being returned to the original speed test page.
I just did a speed check on our offices and although the speed seemed pretty accurate it said we were over 64km away from the exchange, which is clearly not very accurate as it’s only a few miles up the road!
Just did the speed test & it said “You are approximately 5,771,256 metres from the exchange (straight line distance)”
Bearing in mind Lands End to John O’Groats is 1200 miles(ish) (or 1931.208 km) how the hell am I nearly 3 times the length of the country away from my local exchange?????????
Good test - also, the detailed information confirmed what AOL told me, that my phone line can’t manage the speeds that Sky are promising. When they say you can get UP TO 16MB, it is really worth knowing that your phone line and exchange are the limiting factors -I don’t want the hassle of moving suppliers, changing equipment, etc, if I’m not going to see a noticeable improvement in speed.
I did get one very interesting result though - when I told AOL I was thinking about going over to Sky, they immediately matched the offer (so a reduction in price of £15/month with free phone calls thrown in) - quite happy with that!
Hi all,
still having problems with Ntl,or virginmedia,or one of the other two names who now own it.Its a ruddy mess,they cant sort out who should have what and when.With four IP’s using NTL cable,how the heck are we going to get what we are supposed to get.I’m 4Mb my mate is 10Mb and is getting less than 2Mb same as me.Branson is trying to upgrade to 20gb,some hope i recon 2 klbs yep 2Mb maybe if you are exstreamly lucky.
Thanks for signing petition,it covers all IP providers as they are all the same,BT say have us in my town 8Mb,i know for a fact there lines will only support 2Mb,so they say UP TO,the all out get out clouse.
Interesting test, especially the part that tell me how far away from the exchange I am, however the actual result seems to have no meaning, it claims my speed is 452.9 mb, but does not say of what, is that per minute, hour, day? I found that another site, dslreports.com is better, informing me that me connection speed is around 1.6mb per second upload, and 200kb per second download, which I think is quite an accurate assessment of my connection, especially as it measured the downloads from an american server, which is more relevant because most websites are based abroad.
maybe you lot are thick but you just dont seem to understand. I have Virgin media cable broadband and can tell you i receive between 15-20 mbs.
The tech helpdesk number is a 090 number carged at 25p per minute. If the fault is virgis they refubd the cost of this call. there is another 090 number which costs 1.00 per minute this is a number for resolving pc issues not bbi issues.
cable vs adsl well considering bt’s line is copper cale and very poor even with the fibre optic upgrade bt are harping on about is only replacing the major trunk line.
fact bt lines have reached their max speed for years to come
fact virgin media trialling 50 mb as we speak
fact virgin traffic manage top 5% downloaders and their bbi isnt capped
fact virgin media simply put have a better broadband service and customer service
if there is any doubt about this check out the awards virgin have won for their bbi service
I’ve got real problems using the Internet. My download speeds are reasonable for my 1MB service but my upload speeds vary wildly. Frequently they are so low that I can’t get any figure at all. The worst times are typically in the morning from about 8 o’clock and if the weather is bad but later in the day things are fine. BT tell me that either my router or my firewall are to blame. If the router works fine at night how can it be the cause? And if I run the computer in safe mode with the firewall and antivirus off, the problems persist. Any ideas please?
Hi Alex,
The speed test gives you a result in Mb / second, although you are right to note that this isn’t stated on the test (we are updating it now infact to help any users in the future).
With regards to using an overseas speed test- the speed test measures how fast your broadband is, rather than how quickly you can download from sites in America, so it’s not really relevant to say that using an American site is more accurate- in fact it could be less accurate…
Thanks for your post
I have wireless does your test cover that????????????????
I have been a telewest blueyonder saccount holder for may years. and have now got there 20m connection. And ever since virgin media took over they have been absolutly shite.. If i get 5mb then im lucky. And getting a tech support to sort this out is like getting blood out of a stone.. for the first time ever I am looking to go elsewhere.. Be warned keep away they are crap now.
K…………
Seems a very accurate test, most tests tell me what I can receive NOT what I actually get because of distance from exchange. A great help thank you.
my speed test is as below and I can well believe it…… I’m signed up to talktalk broadband and they run a test for me when I signed up and it was 6meg…..
having gone over my limit of 40gig in a two month period about 4 months into my contract … they began to throttle me
I have run other speed tests also and the figures are generally the same… I only live 477 meters away from my exchange so there should be no excuse to way I’m not achieve greater speeds…
talktalk have throttled me ever since month 4 .. when i went over my limit… as time has gone by my broadband has now been reduced to 10kbps (if I’m lucky)
at all times……
they used to open it up @ 3am-6am when everyones in bed, but who downloads at that time……????
being curious I stayed up, one night to check on my speeds to find even now it is throttled through the night…..
I can no longer stream any video clips as they don’t buffer.. I can’t have any more than 1 internet screen open at anyone time… and it takes for ever to load sites hich use extreme advertising or hosted media..
which before never happened, when I joined……. wonder why they want you to sign up for a 18 month contract……… ‘THEY KNOW YOUR NOT GOING TO BE BACK’
‘DON’T SIGN UP TO THIS COMPANY’ i shall be taking my business else where….
there really should be laws against false advertising ( unlimited there’s no such thing), and manipulating common perception…
on signing up, they should run a test , I was told I would get 6 meg by the sales guy( how naive I was at the time) but infact i recieved 2.3meg .. which i could still live with…..
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####ARRRRRRRRR NEEDED THAT RANT!!!!! I FEEL MUCH BETTER, thanks for listening#####
Stevearno… ‘the forum whore’
Your speed test result:
im with virgin media for my broadband and it is excellent service,fastests and most reliable yet,itried bt broadband,it was too slow,tried orange broadband,too slow,tried aol broadband,too slow, when i tried virgin media broadband,hey,i got a result!superfast,cheap,reliable un-interupted service and excellent value pricewise!keep it up virgin broadband,your the best service around! you deserve a medal for your fabulous service virgin media,well done! from brian,gorton,manchester! mcfc football club is tops too!
ive been with bt for 3 years as aol could not supply system we needed at the time, that is 3 pcs 1 laptop and xbox live all on plus phone and bt softphone at the same time,we live 3 thousand metres from exchange and your test showed 3.8 meg which we are happy with,in all the time we have been with bt on total broadband NOT A SINGLE PROBLEM! that has probably gone and done it now! we live in village that does not have cable so perhaps we are lucky
STAY WELL CLEAR ON VIRGIN BROADBAND
Crapist service ever, useless customer services…
Signed up in June 2007 for upto 8Mb - did line tests and said I was 1km from exchange and could get 5-6Mb so I thought I would go ahead. The guy at Virign when I ordered said maximum would be 1/4 of a Mb - 256k, which is impossible because ADSL now can do any distance at upto 512Kb.
Anyhow, started servce and was getting 7Mb so I was chuffed. This worked well for about a month and half to two (until your out of the consumers rights period) and now my speed has dropped, sometimes to 100Kb/s in the evening. Pages time-out like dial-up and I am really ****** off cos they’ve got me on a contract.
Funny how it worked for just over a month fine - Just until they’ve got you out of the grace period. If the problem had appeared before them you are within your consumer rights to cancel under the sale of goods act.
VIRGIN MEDIA ARE THE WORST ISP EVER
Nice site and great speed test, well done
I thought that you (the folks at broadbandgenie) might wanna know that the link to SKY.COM in the “Faster / cheaper broadband in my area” box is broken (ie “Go”).
Scary about the clearest message from forum visitors so far: “stay away from Virgin”. I pity the poor folk who are stuck on that service, especially as the Government’s reply to the formal petition about misleading promises by ISPs was “it’s all okay - what are people moaning about?”. Who’s susprised??
Also, I might seem like a geek but do wonder whether people know anything before leaping into computers / internet etc. Some of the questions are quite shocking … hope this helps someone :
1. speeds quoted in routers are NOT download speeds. They simply display the upper limit at which the router is able to download. So, a router may display 7116 Mbs but the actual download speed could be as little as 600 Kbs - totally unrelated.
2. internet and transmission speeds are ALWAYS measured in “units per second”, so it isn’t unusual not to see “per second” after a speed rating. So if your result shows “4.0 Mb” then you should read “four megabits per second”. Likewise, your ISP may quote “up to 8Mb” … “up to 8 megabits per second”.
Best wishes to everyone and good luck with the site. I may pop back in a week or so to run the test again and see whether the link has been fixed … tho I’m actually quite pleased with DEMON
J
Re Doctor Fonz
Your comments are very familiar however I suggest it is since the Virgin take over. I have been with NTL , not top of the list for customer services, but the cable broadband was brilliant. Never had a problem in the years I have been with them. Free Customer services etc.
Virgin Media is completely naff. I canot eve contact them to cancel the service! Call their customer services at 25 p per minute at the lowest cost VAT and you get put through to India. Then you speak at HUGE expense to some polite but useless person speking broken English working from prompts on a computer screen They spend half the call repeating the same old customer services babble and you get NOWHERE!
I wonder whether there is a national strategy to target old NTL customers to kill off the NTL email address/domain?
STAY AWAY FROM VIRGIN MEDIA IT IS HOPELESS>
Hey guys. I may have a solution to your slow internet speeds. I’ve been bustin my balls trying to work out an answer and I think I found it. I upgraded from 2MB to 20MB (XL) on Virgin Media so it should work for all XL Customers. Type the following link into your address bar:
http://192.168.100.1/
In the top left you’ll see Login. Click on it and and it’ll come up with with a username and password. Type in root, all lowercase in both boxes and press enter.
You’ll know you’re in when you get some links on the left hand side saying things like Status, Downstream, Upstream etc.
Click on the link “Operation Config”.
When you click it, you’ll see a message saying maximum downstream length and maximum upstream length etc.
My downstream says 20480000 and above it it says allowed. That means that I can get my 20 MB connection.
So if you’re XL your number should say that too.
You then need to click on Tools in the top right hand corner and it’ll ask you to reset to defaults, click it and then check yes then apply. Close down internet explorer or Mozilla and restart internet again.
Go onto speedtest.net or speedtest.bbmax.co.uk to check your internet speed.
I really hope it works for you guys cos it’s working for me. I was on 2 meg downloading at 225-240KB max. Now I’m download over 1.5 - 2.2MB per second!!! Definitely worth it when it’s working
If it works drop me a line at qaari786@gmail.com so that I know it did work
P.S I ain’t some lame Virgin Media Technician or anything. I’m 19 so if I could work it out in a couple of hours, it’ll probably take them another 6 months or so at least. lol 
i dont get it i do a speed check everyday and on many sites all say i am on 11 meg but i am paying for 20meg with virgin media yet this site says i get 28 meg vigin media says my connection is fine cos when i download a file it starts at 5 meg then drops to 1 meg can anyone explain how virgin media work out what u r receiving.
Hi,
I was with ntl when Branson took over. Since then both the broadband and tv services have deterioated. My broadband should be nominal 2mb but the best I have measured with this test ( or any other) is 230 kb. We have just installed BT adsl at work and it achieves on average 2.3 mb down a phone line 3 miles from the exchange. Virgin are cutting back on everything because he wants the costs to look good because he is selling up. Do not go near them!
I have been reading the people who say they are getting 20mb download when they are paying for 20mb BB package. Unless you connect through the exchage you will not get 20mb on a 20mb package you will lose a small percent through your cables, gold plated platinum plated, whatever!
and then the percentage loss to get to your door, these are not fibre optics.
Virgin are on a scam, they have not got the resources to supply everyone with this speed, and keep it up at peak times. you should ponly pay for high speed BB if like an earlier comment you are up at 6am while all the yanks sleep.
Not sure about this test - says I am getting 780kb on my 8Mb broadband through a wired network router. If I plug the ADSL into my PC direct the network connection says I am getting a 7.8Mb connection. Even through the router I have downloaded at speeds in excess of 800kb/sec. is broadband genie a marketing wing of someone ?
Just checked my broadband speed at 5.3Mb which is not so bad.
I was confused by the site response, offering me alternatives which were not available.
Recommended Sky Max for my area,
Although when I went to the Sky link, they said only Connect was available.
i am supposed to be on a 20 mb connection done his test and it says i am 1.5 mb connection and this is with virgin media i am paying 37 pound for this rubbish a mnth what a rip off.
did you upgrade from a 2mb service ?
check with customer services cos you could still be on 2mb
also check out virginmedia wed site for the 20mb optimiser configs for xp users it may help.average speed for 20mb is approx 14mb
vigin media are a scam for the 20mb connection cos they run a thing called traffic checking and peak time limits wich they keep hush about so during peak times and u download large files ur speed will he halved again and again untill u have a speed of 250kb and a transfer rate of 40kb untill the next day. and any cable connection is supposed to be costant and no matter where u r from the exchange u should get that spped.
i am going to leave as soon as i can but i am bound by the contract which is fabricated and twisted but just legal.
if u want to see what i mean use a site called speedtest.net and do multiple test over a 5 hour period say one a hour or more and if it is a good connection it will be constant and only differ by about 500kb-1mb but if like mine u do the tests and the differ considerably like from 16mb at 5 down to 6mb at 6 and 2mb at 7 and then 10mb at 12 it is a rip off and to see better results use podcasts for download speed tests i.e. do one then browse the web and then do another podcast to see results.
u should look for transfer speeds when downloading:
“these can vary depending where u download from”
excellent=2.19mb up
good=1.25mb upto 2.00mb
ok= 800kb upto 1mb
poor=750 down
Virgin are on a scam, they have not got the resources to supply everyone with this speed, and keep it up at peak times. you should ponly pay for high speed BB if like an earlier comment you are up at 6am while all the yanks sleep.
yanks have nothing to do with uk internet they have there own surppliers
wich r amazing uk is toss for cable for decent internet get adsl 2
On 20mbit Virgin Cable in Manchester City Centre. Used to get excellent speeds just after the upgrade to 20mbit (over 2000kb/sec downloads) but it has gone to shit recently. I’m currently getting about 150kb/sec max downloading from fast UK ftp servers at 11:48 PM on a Thursday, even in the middle of the night I don’t see more than a few hundred kb/sec… Quite disappointed and hope they get more bandwidth soon
If you want the government to step in and do something then sign the petition in the link.
Started by computeractive magazine, and thousands already signed, give your support ………
quoted from Vnunet forums;
Our aim is to get the communications regulator Ofcom, to investigate the discrepancy between advertised broadband speeds and those achieved in practice. We think the watchdog should force ISPs to advertise introduce a typical rate, much like that advertised by credit card providers instead of just the maximum theoretical speed.
In other words, they need to be more honest about what speed you are likely to get given your line, exchange etc, not tie you into a contract where you think your going to get almost 8 meg or at least more than the 2 meg you may be already contracted to and quite happy with.
How many have upgraded only to be left with a slower connection than they previously had?
Support them and stand up for your rights;
http://www.computeractive.co.uk/campaign/
Just click the button that says “sign our petition”.
Having a nightmare with Virgin Media. Have done the BT Speedtester as requested by Virgin. This was bad enough as it took ages to even get onto the site, regularly kicked off as it is too busy (how many others suffering slow speeds that they have to test it??????) then given data showing download speeds of 700kbps to 1.5mbps.
This is above the acceptable minimum of 600k (YES 600K IS THE ACCEPTABLE MINIMUM ON AN UP TO 8MB BROADBAND CONNECTION!!!!!!!!) So there it is, whilst I am subscribed to a 8MB package at the best part of £20 a month, there minimum standard equates to the equivalent of £1.50. Now here is the best bit - all the other speed tests I have done show download speeds of around 100 to 170k. The lowest I got was 92k, at which point I nearly threw the modem out of the window.
I have stopped my direct debit and am waiting for my day in court with Virgin. I suggest you all do the same.
Well….
This morning I was on 6.5 meg
Now its dropped to 0.1
Can’t even videocall my mates!
Id dread to think what my BT vision box would be thinking if I wanted to waste some money on it.
I spoke to the BT fair usage department today, I have downloaded 47gig this month and im on unlimited and they say it will be the end of the month and will be limited down to 2meg.
Obviously its not 2meg, not even 1/2.
Anyone give some advice?
Robster
I chalenged virgin to take me to court i.e.
sales lne said “yes its cofirmed 6 to 8 mb on your line” that constitutes a verbal contract, never had that speed well i did for 2 hours after telling them i had no connection, the BT engineer said you have no connection, er yes i know!!!
Virgin, state on price & charge another higher price, so they have by definition “intentionaly” miss sold to me, again thats a breach, so you are stealing from me, “you cant say that sir”,,,er no well sue me
they other guy Brian in Manchester getting good service, i am pleased you are, but a word of caution, (on one blog site, one happy user was someone working at Virgin!!!) i am not suggesting you are mate, but its easy to come on here and say things!!.
I can assure you i am a genuine frustrated virgin media customer my (humourous, as i am desparetly trying o hang on to my santity & try to give them a chance,) find it on www.myvirginmediahell.co.uk )
I just wish that companies delivered what they say they can & if they cant say so, is that too much to ask?????
Regards
p.s. “all i want for christmas is my 8mb connection at the price i was told”
Brian J Wilkinson
sorry i was wrong about robster beig happy, have said misread it ,sorry long day trying to sort virgin out & driving in and out of manchester every day melts your brain.
aplogies brian
maybe i can sue virgin for mental torture!!!!!!!!!
no they r in breach of contract 600kb is not right for 8mb that is not even accepted on a 2mb line. they can do nothing to u and they should take full responsability to fix it or allow u to leave i am making them dig up my street to fix mine they will put a whol;e new cable in they r on the edge of the law at the moment anyway
With regard to Virgin Broadband. I have been with Virgin for almost a year. For the first eight months it was fine- I’m only signed up for 1Mb service so download speeds of 900 kbps were very acceptable. Then, in September of this year, the speeds suddenly dropped to 100 kbps on average. I bombarded Virgin with emails, phone calls etc. They sent BT Outreach around who could find nothing wrong with this set-up. So I gave up. And then, very suddenly, about a month ago, everything reverted to it’s normal speed. The trouble was obviously at their end but I have had no apology, no explanation and certainly no offer of telephone-call refunds.
It it with some reluctance therefore, that as soon as my contract has run its course, I shall migrate, as they say. I look forward to explaining my reasons for doing so, as I shall use very plain and non-ambiguous language in order to express my feelings regarding Virgin. Having said that, we (the UK) are probably the laughing stock of Europe when it comes to Broadband. I have contacts of some of the Eastern European countries whose broadband services are far in advance of ours. They are also treated with courtesy and respect, and are given excelent feed-back.
And this, in countries with standards of living far below our. It is our fault for putting up with sub-standard services. It is high time everyone got together and laid out in no uncertain terms just what we think of services. Sign the petition- at least it’s a start. Write to your MPs. Bombard your ISP with emails- long ones, every day. Create bad publicity. Write to your loocak newspapers. Phone your local radio stations. Eventually, the message will get through. Take care, Fred.
virgin media broaband - stay away even if they offer it for free im paying for 8mbs and i get speeds less than a dial up connection, infact whan i was on dial my connection was faster. virgin sucks all they want is your money.
Virgin Media seem to take a lot of stick, possibly because people don’t understand there are two completely different systems out there in cyberspace. In cabled areas you can have the up to 20Mbit (some testing 50) connection. I live in an area where few seem to be connected and I get near enough the full 20MBits without contention when downloading from big iron server sites, Microsoft, Adobe etc. and when file sharing through Torrents. I don’t notice any traffic shaping either.
In non-cabled areas Virgin provide the usual ADSL style connection over the ‘phone line suffering from the usual “upto 8Mbits” marketing, the same as any other ADSL provider who could provide a connection from that exchange.
They just aren’t the same thing…
I’ve had cable in various forms and speeds from NTL, then Virgin for the last 15 years or so and it’s probably been down for no more than a few hours in that time. Never have to reboot or reconnect. It’s just a shame more areas of the UK aren’t cabled.
Lo Guys
This VM service is discraceful, I just paid £5.00 for technical on BBand problems, (after refusing to call Premium No for about 2 weeks of slow line) Anyway I diligently did what I was told. Remove the router & Connect straight to the modem. no hubs nothing do reboot & reset Etc. Results several downloads from Download.com that I was instructed to do. several 4meg, 6meg * n so on till Finally I got one that gave me a peak 12 meg. the bloke said see that’s better isn’t it. FGS I told him I am paying ofr up to 20 megs £37 a week NOT UP TO !2 MEGS. he replied oh well don’t forget you got antivirus and other things running so that will slow it down. Ya know what VM are absolutely crap and I am going to cancel my account a go BE £18.00 up to 24 megs Can’t possibley worse than what I got.
Colin:- A very unhappy Vmedia user.
Hmm I just Dun your Speed test I mean to say?? is it right??
Your speed test result: 252.5 Kb
According to BT wholesale, your line should be able to support a 4.9 Mbps ADSL connection via ADSL max
I am spose to be getting 20 meg (Up to) and it’s costing £37
Colin:- Even more unhappy
Why do you give results in Kbps and then our target speed in MB. What sort of arithmetic am I meant to do to compare the two? Are MB in seconds or minutes? Do 1000 kbs = 1 MB?
I am getting around 450 - 500 Kbps, with 2 Mb package from Virgin media.
This site gives my phone number a 3.6 Mb rating
If I put my phone number into a BT web site, I get 0.5 Mb rating.
If I put in my neighbour’s phone number, he gets 4.5 Mb rating.
We both get our lines from the same pole.
Because my line is arbitarily rated at 0.5 Mb, Virgin Media say that they cannot do anything.
I have had speeds as low as 12 Kbps.
Any ideas would be much appreciated.
Tony Furniss
im supposted to be getting 20mb on virgin media, ive ran these online tests 10 times and tried every site i can get on, the max i am recieving is 3.5mb!
…….
I am in Stoke-on-Trent and signed upto a sky package almost 12months ago. It has never worked right from the beginning. DONT put McAfee anti-virus on it is c*ap, it will cause your computer more trouble use a free be off the internet and dont expect the email account to work and when you compain dont be surprised if they call it an extra. DONT listen to the technicians in teir one because they read off cue card and can nearly destroy your computer when they tell you to reset you computer back to factory settings. expect to be transfered around the world to different call centres and dont be surprised if they make up departments and phone numbers. ONLY telephone the technicians after 11pm because then you go through to a British call centre. The only sky technicians are located on tier3, if they allow you to be put through and expedt to wait an hour to be connected on the phone and weeks of call backs to get the problems fixed. I need broadband for my studies and to have the sky package at £25.00 per month for broadband, phone and tv seemed a bargin but it wasnt, ive had problems with all three and evn dropped out of a course because of it.
I checked and double checked my speed before joining and I was told that I could expect 4MB on my line but my line has been down graded to about 2MB because they say my line recieves the maximun number of errors before it cuts out but neither shy nor bt are interested in fixing the problem and I have tried several times to run the gaget show speed test but I cannot down load it and my computer is more than capable.
So beware if you sign upto sky. I have waited years to get broadband and go to university justified the cost but to say that they didnt keep to there contract and that it was the worst decision I exer made doesnt do justice to the problems I have had. I dont know who to join upto as all companies are over subscribed and our lines and exchanges are not up todate enough to cope with the traffic but they keep selling people the hype of upto 8MB but probally only if your located next to the exchange.
This test stated that I am recieving 840.1kb but my DDSL connection via ADSL Max should support 3.4MBps and I am 2,288 meters from the exchange. I should be greatful for anything at this point.
Something seriously wrong with this speedtester I think! I am experiencing much slower speeds than I should on my new 16 Mb connection. Ran this speedtest about 8 timest straight after another and got results ranging from below 56 Kb to 563 Mb!! I would have been very happy with that last speed…had it been true.
use this if u r with virgin it will give u a accurate speed www.speedtest.d04.net
my line is working finally it took months to sort and i have made freinds in the company so i now get great help from uk tech not india the speed has increased greatly i have been reimbursed only in credit tho so i got 3 monthes practically free due to cost of phone calls adding up and lack of speed that i was paying for got me half my money back in credit which then paid for the next month and so on now i fell it has vastly improved i am on 20mb speed test say 13.5-15.3mb
transfer rate can vary
public server 300kb -900kb
private server 1.4mb-2.4mb
HI I’m with Virgin Media, supposedly on a 2mb line. Your first test was 240KBS which is about what I get. The fastest it has ever been in real life is 270KBS. Generally its 250 or less. Talk to Virgin and they do a ping test in which they pull a number out of a magicians hat. This bears no resemblance to real life, on any site, at any time. If I upload something even at 10KBS, the slowest snail is fast in comparison. I phoned BT the other day with a view to going back on copper line instead of cable. They want £125, I asked them if they wanted me back as a customer they would be over the moon if I paid them £125. Whatever you do don’t sign up to Virgin. Terryco
I would like to see the upload speed as well as the download speed on your test as most of my problems appear to be with sending not receiving - one speed test I have just done as a 2mb user gives my download at 1982 kb/s and my upload at 193kb/s!!!!
www.speedtest.net
for upload and download but test on diferent servers i.e closest to u then go further away
it used to be more faster but now it is very slow whats going on
Unfortunately, I live in the Kingston Communications (KC) area and, therefore, cannot get alternative phone or broadband providers. I hope I can in the future because I can guarantee that I will dump KC for the poor “take it or leave it” attitude it has with its customers. I agree with a number of your contributers when they say that the customers are “ripped off” by all the providers. What it must be like to be an American where services are really competitive and not rigged by the “old boy” network of British business.
According to BT wholesale, your line should be able to support a 2.4 Mbps ADSL connection via ADSL max,than why do i only get 267.6kb?Madasafish (BT owned) you can do better .
I’m with Sky Broadband 16Mb costing £10 a month. I just tried the speed test 20 times and each time it gave results between 15Mb and 45Mb
aol download speed only getting 2266 kbps should be 5.4 mbps contacted aol changed netgear router settings, download speed now 5639 kbps
Interesting results. You tell me that I can’t receive Virgin Cable, even though that is what I currently have. BT claim my line is ADSL compatible, even though I am not on BT, and finally I get this very interesting result:
“You are connected to the Willingham telephone exchange
You are approximately 5,816,509 metres from the exchange (straight line distance)”
I am with virgin paying for 4mb and i am getting 4mb so no complaints there. And to all the people that are with BT yes it says up to 8mb but that what it mean UP TO with virgin you pay for a specific speed with bt you get up to 8mb but it depends on your area and what the connection restrictions are in that area that is why some people get 1mb or 4mb it cant be fixed it is to do with the area.
The test seems to work fine. The only problem is the - three faster/cheaper broadband suppliers in my area - bit.
First one’s Sky - which I can’t get as i don’t have Sky tv.
Second and third are both from O2, both sound great, but neither are available at my exchange.
I am with VM as well on 4Mbps. After months with them I am so disgusted. Speed slowing down frequently and you really cannot do nothing with this as their support is brainless and I’ve got more knowledge then them! MUPPETS and that’s all folks. Let them swim in their own ****! I am just awaiting my contract will be finished then I will switch to Be Broadband.
May the Force be with you.
This speed test is inaccurate. It tells me my speed is 4.7megabits/second, while I can download at speeds of just over 2 megabytes/second, which equates to ~ 16 megabits/second.
Just in case you are thinking of changing your internet to Virgin Media……
DON’T DO IT !!!!!! If you haven’t guessed by now, they are totally disgraceful
when it comes to broadband speeds.
I’m supposed to be on an 8mb service and (as it has been pointed out above)
after about a month and a half, the speed has now almost vanished. After the grace period. I mean less that DIAL UP at ‘normal’ hours. At 3 in the morning it’s great, but that just isn’t what I’m paying for. I now have to pay their stupid premium number to try and sort out what’s going on. Notice that you can’t seem to email them about this ???
They are not providing the service that they advertise.
Shocking. Totally disgraceful.
Ok this can’t be right I am with Tiscali unlimited broadband as I have been for a few years now and I have been having probelms with the connection in the past. What I am supposed to be getting is 8 mb broadband but what it actually reads as is 614.5 Kb! Which I am assuming is the reason for the connection problems. The majority of the time I can do normal things with the internet but sometimes it just shuts off whilst running on the internet.
And yes I do have wireless, no other laptops xboxs or otherwise were attached at the time of the test and I seriesly doubt that this is right. I am seriously annoyed at my connection at the moment and dont know what to do, any help or suggestions would be awsome.
Tiscali are LAME!!!!!!!
Got the 8MB package. 2 weeks for router, fine. Check speed 0.5MB ??????
Check again 0.4MB ??? WTF? Call tiscali 001 (no help “try turning anti virus off”, turn firewall off”)
call 02 rubbish again
call 03 ”
call 04 ”
call 05 “an engineer will call you back”
call 06 ”
call 07 “there is a probelem with the line speak with tiscali talk” can you just transfer me? no ring this 0845number”
call 08 “can you make calls?” yes “nothing wrong then speak to tiscali broadband”
call 09 “speak to tiscali talk
call 10 somewhee in india - phone hangs up after me getting annoyed
call 11 “an engineer will call you”
Engineer finally calls “you can only get 2MB”, you said i would get 6-8mb befor i signed up now only 2MB? furthermore that still does not explain why i’m getting 0.5MB???? “An engineer will call you”
wa**ers
Yeah this speed test is inaccurate. If you know anything about networks you will know how and why it is . From experience of two different Broadband providers most give what they say if you look at the small print. BT line up to 8mb - got about 6.8 , thats fine. Virgin Media (cable connection), by far the best, get between 18 - 20mb on a 20mb connection.
I am sorry to say that I found your broadband speed site quite useless. It did not seem to know I was on cable and, despite typing-in my postal address, it continued to advise about an imaginary telephone link.
as far as i can work all this out think of bits instead of bytes i.e 1000bits =100k/bs=1m/bit=100 k/bytes my downloads run at 200-50 k/bytes which=2.5 m/bits what they are doing is using lower case letters i.e 1kb means 1 bit while 1 KB means 1byte therefore 1mb means bit while 1MB means bytes i think all u folk
s should work it all out it means we are all getting shafted
The test isn’t accurate at all. My connection is 1800kiloBits/s which roughly (!) translates to a download speed of about 180kilobyte/second. And this is what I’m getting. Yet this test tells me anything between 6.5 and 9.8 Mb/s. Now if by Mb you mean megabits, that’s very inaccurate. If you mean Megabytes, then it’s totally off.
And no, I’m not using a proxy.
lets stop all the confusion check out connected internet speed test then all will be clear i have a 20mb virgin line an on average recieve a 15mb d/l speed which is reasonable from what ive read so far plus you will notice no trying to sell you another ISP who might have third party interests in the site any way good luck with your connections
i think all these internet companies are taking us for fools thikning we do not know what is going on. they promise a certain speed of 1mb to 20mb but they do not dilever this connection. i think they are jus making lots of money from us and not giving us “good customer service”.
So . . .
Is the result is bytes or bits????
I am either getting exactly what I paid for or have a really really bad link. I knew things are bad, that why I tried the speed test. but now???? I have no clue!!
PLEASE DEFINE THE SPEED TEST UNITS!!!!!
I just wasted 5 mins of my life.
Duncan
Broadband speeds are always expressed in bits, e.g. 2Mb broadband = 2 megabits per second = approx. only 0.25MB (megabytes) per second. Cynics often make the point that this is deliberately intended to mislead and to make broadband sound faster than it is.
Broadband usage allowances, however, are described by the more common bytes (as opposed to bits).
There’s an article in the Broadband Genie help section that explains how broadband speed is measured in more detail.
virgin media if u can get in ur area is the way forwad
Your test said that my maximum bandwidth on the line is 4.4Mb - but you suggested that I changed to ISPs that were offering 16Mb - how can they do this when the phone line will not support those speeds? Crazy
I have had BT Broadband for just 2 months now and the fastest speed I can get is 160Kb and i’m promised 5.7Mb by BT who even made me wait 3 extra days before they turned the Broadband on saying they had to fit equipment to ensure I got the promised speed !!!!!But I still pay the full price for just over normal dialup speed…1Mb is were DSL starts and 2Mb I thought was were ADSL started and I get 160Kb haha very funny BT this is supposed to be an ADSL broadband service not turbo dialup….
I have had Virgin 20meg con now for nearly a year and
i find no fault with it 99% of the time i get 19.5 meg per sec and have had it go as far as 20.2 meg per sec but as always it slows at peek user times but nothing to bad prob down to 14 odd meg P/S but i can handle that so all in all I am very satisfied with the package i have…. and any of u guys on BT or Talk Talk forget it waste of space and good money espically Talk Talk and thats just it they r just talk had to threaten Talk Talk with the national newspapers which didnt go down well and they refunded a years subscription just a bunch of ******s…get Virgin u wont regret it i know i dont
i got 20mb virgin connection i get 15mb up2 20mb on speed tests i had BT before 8mb and i always got just over 1mb and that made me mad they said its your phone line its how far u are from the exchange so now im with virgin 20mb i dont always get what i pay 4 but its always fast even when i get 10mb when its busy its still the best 2 get so if you want 4mb get 8mb if you want 10mb get 20mb then when its busy with everyone going on there pc and your connection slows down u still get what you wanted and the rest of the time you will have even better connection GET VIRGIN GET VIRGIN not the 2mb thats free get MORE GET VIRGIN