Broadband Speed Test
Use the broadband test below to get a snapshot of your current download and upload speed. It’s free to use, so do as many tests as you like – in fact, we encourage you to do as many as you can (and at as many different times/days as possible) to build up a more accurate overall picture of the speeds you are getting.
Even if you run lots of them, remember broadband speed tests may still not be a definitive answer to what pace your broadband connection runs at, or is actually capable of. Please see both our guide to why your broadband connection may be slow and our guide to broadband speeds.
This test is designed for fixed-line cable and ADSL broadband services. If you're using mobile broadband, click here for our mobile broadband speed test. The broadband check does take a few moments to run, so please be patient. See below for a detailed description of how the speed test actually works.
Test your speed now
Want to improve your speed without switching your Broadband? Click here to speed up your PC
Top 5 things that can affect your broadband speed
Has our fixed-line home broadband speed test confirmed your worst fears about your internet connection? Here are the most common reasons why you might not be getting the speeds you expect:
- The length, and quality, of line between your house and the exchange.
- Wireless routers, or multiple machines; using a wireless connection can seriously slow your broadband speed, while multiple connections will share the same line, slowing performance for each.
- The time of day; peak times can slow speeds, especially if your provider has a lot of users locally.
- The quality of phone extension wire inside your house, plus the speed of your PC or laptop; a slow running machine or old/shoddy wiring can affect performance.
- Traffic 'shaping', or management; when a provider slows your connection because it prefers one kind of traffic over another (for example, streaming video over downloading), or is punishing you for excessive use (such as downloading too many large files).
How does the Broadband Genie speed test work?
On starting the Broadband Genie speed test our server sends your computer a small amount of data (512KB) to evaluate the initial speed of the test. The first 64KB are ignored to take in to account the possibility of a slow start to the transmission. This initial speed is then multiplied by a constant to work out how much data to send for a full test: this will last between 10 and 20 seconds.
The same evaluation process also occurs for the upstream test (to test the upload speed), sending the same amount of data. On particularly slow connections, the evaluation can take a while to complete.
The full test then begins, with our server first sending the amount of data (calculated to optimise the length of the test), followed by your machine returning the data. The average speed of the test (note: the peak speed may be higher) is then calculated and reported to you.
You can select a 'port 80' option by clicking the box just below the test box, which uses the port 80/tcp data transfer protocol instead of the HTTP protocol. However, because it is not HTTP, if your provider carries out traffic shaping (giving priority to certain types of data) it may be that the port 80 test will show a slower result than a HTTP test, as the latter protocol might end up being prioritised.
Please note: If you want to test your mobile broadband speed, please instead use our Mobile Broadband Genie speed test.
The data stream is pre-compressed, so it should not be possible to falsify results by accelerating it using any further compression techniques/software.
Comments
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What does download speed and upload speed mean? What should it be? -
Editor - Ciaron Dunne@Martin: your broadband provider should have told you your theoretical max download speed when you bought your package. You might want to read our guide to understanding download and upload speeds. -
Hi, great site, the speed test gave me download 1.05 Mbps, and upload 0.33 Mbps. Bit different to the talk talks 8meg! I do live about 4 miles from the village exchange and then another 3 from the main exchange. My PC is new and top spec.. Should talktalk still charge me full whack for this limited service? I have also just discovered that talktalk are offering for an extra £4 a month a turbo boost service that will make you even faster!!!
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i can never get very good connection on the playstation 3 does any one no y ?? -
Same as Ross, I am with Talktalk 8meg service, giving an abismal average 680Kbs.. while I appreciate that the service offered is 'up to...8meg' I feel that a better discription would be 'up to... 1meg' !
I have new Netgear, new Macbook pro and am about 3 miles from the exchange.
My question is, the line is via BT and there is no cable locally so how could this service be improved as this is the only line? I need more speed!!
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yeah i quite agree tiscali's 8mb is funny as i am getting 0.45mb lol
and i only live 2 miles away from the exchange and we have top spec phone extention cables as well and new routers and recievers. -
I have Sky broadband at the moment but the upload speed isn't very good and I need it to be better. I have a new IP phone from work for home-working and its not liking my upload speed. If I change to someone else is this problem stilll likely i.e. is it just because of where I live compared to exchange or is it Sky?
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With reference to the comments above I recommend reading Personal Computer World April 2009 issue article Boost Your Broadband. It contains useful info on telephone wiring, websites to get details on your exchange, & tweaking your PC.
I went from download & upload speeds of 0.280mb & 0.070mb to approx 5-7mb & 0.35-8mb.
Initially installing a dedicated telephone extension & not working off an extension lead reel, then contacting my ISP (Madasafish) & following their instructions ie leaving my router switched on virtually 24/7 so they could do their work at their end. It took my ISP approx 2 weeks to get my speed upto the figures listed above from my first contact with the support team.
My local exchange is only 1km away by road, 700m as the crow flies.
As a last comment it was very easy to install a extension 10m from the master BT socket, £30 for parts & one dedicated tool, & I am not a DIY enthusiast.
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I'm now that rare beast, a happy TalkTalk customer, now getting 10Mb having endured years of slow service. This all emerged following a total loss of broadband, prior to that I had been 'enjoying' anything from 1/4 - 1.8 Mb speeds. I spent the best part of a month speaking to TalkTalk on a daily basis trying everything, different routers, cables filters, ran it off the main test socket inside the face plate etc. Eventually decided to accept the offer of an engineers call out having been warned it would cost me £160 if the problem was found at my end. He came and discovered firstly that my home alarm monitoring system was fitted directly into the back of the main box which seriously interefered with the signal and accounted for the slow speeds. Once removed it leapt from 1.5 to 11Mb but there was still aproblem. This was eventually tracked down to a fault on a cable between my house and the exchange where the cable was touching another. Sorted. Safe in the knowledge that I potentially had higher speed available I asked TalkTalk if they would give me the 'turboboost' free of charge (normally £4/month extra), which allows you to receive the maximum speed available on your line even if over 8Mb, this as a measure of goodwill for the loss of broadband i had sufferd in the previous month. They agreed and finally they have a very happy customer who is saving a fortune over what I used to pay with BT. btw the engineer never mentioned the alarm phone cable being hung onto my telephony.
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i know it might sound daft but i get 19.5 meg from virgin and i still lag every single night. i play xbox live cod5 waw. try to talk to there customer services or the tech support thats a joke - all they know is unplug your modem, wait 30secs that should solve it. NO NO for the 1000 time it doesnt solve it. might try o2 because virgin are a JOKE.
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it 's all right for me.
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So with 1.95 download and 0.23 upload, what has been gained by doing this test and is it not painfully slow? Surgest going to Sky.com for better service.
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Close to BT's advertised speed in the test
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8Meg service from BT! been having problems for a while though, raising it with them
Date 30/08/09 15:13:28
Download speed 326.68 Kbps (0.32 Mbps)
Upload speed 373.62 Kbps (0.36 Mbps)
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i am with Sky at the end of the line, 7 miles from the exchange. 215Kb download 108Kb up on a good day - i would be happy with 500 down and 250 up.
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Got 5.18 down and 0.33 up on BT and i am a fair distance from exchange. Actually surprised it was so good, especially as daughters' 3 laptops also using same wireless connection at the time.
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had bt,had sky, now got virgin .bt 0.7 meg,sky 0.7 meg , virgin on a bad day its 12 meg through a wireless router, straight into modem 35+meg ( had 47 meg once )
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Robbie, regarding your PS3, this could be due to port forwarding. have a look on www.portforward.com. this site will help you set this up.
Tony, maybe you should also try the above for your lagging problem.
i'm getting 3.3 d/l and 0.4 u/l.not too bad i guess, i was hoping for more since my line can handle up to 5.5. i'm paying £10 a month from Sky but thats for unlimited downloads mostly! Robbie and Tony, hope this helped? another suggestion may be to try using a cabled connection to the router?? not ideal but may help. -
Im also on Talk Talk and in fairness to them (and i am NEVER fair to them usually) they said my theoretical speed is 4.1Mbps and i get 3ish normally (p2p traffic shaping not withstanding) has anyone bought the "speed boost" on TalkTalk? does the p2p traffic shaping kill it just as dramatically? or will it actually make a difference?
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I'm with AOL on an "up to" 8 meg package. Judging by the results (0.11Mbps download and 0.2Mbps upload) it looks as though I'm being severely ripped off. I also only live just over 400m from the exchange
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I was recently offered by O2 for £7.34 broadband with upto 8Mbps with 3 months free. Spoke to AOL, as I have been with them for 6-7 years already I told them about the O2 offer and that unless they can match the deal I'll be needing my MAC (Migration Code) to switch. My current package is upto 2Mbps for £14.99.
Offered me two deals, bundling my calls for £6.50 a month, I wasn't interested. They charge ridiculous connection fees per call.
Offered me another deal which was basically the same as I was getting now but for £9.99 per month (instead of £14.99) and increasing my speed to 8Mbps. The only downside, I'm on another 12 months contract but I'm quite happy with that though. But what made my day was it's free for 3 months so nothing to pay until Jan 2010.
So to all of you on AOL, try calling Member Services on 01179 191112 (I looked up the free number-connects you straight to a call center agent in Ireland) and say something like you're thinking of switching and we'll see what they've got to say. I hope I end up saying you guys some money.
Also as I was reading this thread, it is also worth noting, if you want to check the capacity of your line (i.e. you're on an 8Mbps deal and you're getting a slower service, maybe because your line is only capable of a certain speed. My line is very old apparently and can only give me a max of 3.5Mbps even though I'm on an 8Mbps deal.)
http://www.dslchecker.bt.com/adsl/adslchecker.welcome
Check it out!
So for those of you -
good test pain to fill i form
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Great result, I'm with TalkTalk and yes the state up to 8Mbps and the word you should be looking at is 'UP TO SPEEDS OF'so as regularly get Download speeds of 4152.66 Kbps (4.06 Mbps) and Upload speed 764.69 Kbps (0.75 Mbps) so I am happy with the results. Try using a port other than 80 as this allows data issues when testing and may give a Slower result. BJT
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I am on 3 Mobile Broadband (allegedly). Overall, it's been ok, but the past 7-10 days have not been good! Frequent dropouts and being connected but unable to display web pages. 3 tech support gave me some stuff to try (straight off the help pages....Duh!). I am on contract and gave my daughter my 3 Mobile PAYG dongle. She has had the same probs as me recently. If I get a resolution, I'll let you all know (don't hold your breath!)
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I've been with Be Unlimited for three years since moving house
I did have the 24Mb Be unlimited service but changed to the cheaper 8Mb Be value, having failed to ever exceed 2.5 Mb in practice, due to distance from the exchange
This weekend, following broadband booster instructions on the web, we disconnected the ringer wire in the phone socket and immediately jumped from 2.5 to over 6Mb download, though the upload is still -
I'm struggling with BT at the moment to increase my speed from 0.1261 Mbps to something nearer to the advertised 20 Mbps. Let you know the outcome.
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Hehe Ive been with Tiscali and had 0.17 Dwnstream! When i was supposed to get at least 1.8mbps so i switched to BT and now i run the test and getting:
Date 09/10/09 16:31:26
Download speed 72.87 Kbps (0.07 Mbps)
Upload speed 151.81 Kbps (0.15 Mbps)
-FAIL-
Looking forward to moving to my misses house as she using Virgin Cable! 20MBPS FTW -
i feel like swearing tbh i play xbox live my internet cuts its self off all timei have top of range router and i ring them and they say dont have 2 computers on! Get f**ked, haha wot a joke i pay for 20 megs and only get 7003 on my internet test on sky and 5.2 on here - how the f**k that work out?
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Ofcom should be enforcing ISPs to only charge for the delivered speed. Sky gave us an estimate of 4Meg on a pre-sale test, so we signed up for "Up to 8 Meg" but can only get under 1 Meg on any speed test. Sky refuse to reduce the contract back to their 2Meg price. I think this is a clear case of mis-selling. Come on Ofcom - do something to protect the taxpayers that fund you!
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Somehow TalkTalk become so inadequate so inspite all my effort they refused to correct download speed, which is currently 0.66Mbps??, whereas I pay for about 8Mbps. This is how TalkTalk is losing costumers, no wonder I am changing ISP.
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Hmmm?
Your test doesn't work, no speed is displayed.
Are you just mining addresses as the man said earlier? -
Editor - Chris MarlingNo, we're certainly not mining addresses, and thousands of people successfully use our speed test on a regular basis. Have you tried heading over to Thinkbroadband.com to try the test there? Ours is fed in directly from them, so if you continue to have problems on their site too I suggest you drop them an email. -
hay my d/l speed came through at 1.3mg (
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On an 8Mb BT Broadband deal. Have been happy with it for a couple of years. Up until about a year ago their site was saying my connection was 6Mb maximum (max line speed) and I was getting 4Mb which was great for the sorts of things I use it for (youtube video, email, general web browsing)
recently (last 3 weeks) its been real sluggish and the BT site is reporting a max line speed of 4Mb but I'm getting 1Mb-2Mb.
*This* site is reporting 0.6Mb.
In any case, I'm reaaly unhappy. Its not exactly a cheap deal (£17 pm or something?!!!) :-(
Hopefully its just a short term glitch and it'll pick up again ... -
im with bt signed up a 9mb and im recieving 17 np problems here maybe im a lucky 1 lol
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I am an IT professional specialising in computer networks. Let me explain how BroadBand works. Firstly you have fundamentally two types of service SDSL (Symetrical Digital Subscriber Line) and ADSL (Asymetrical Digital Subscriber Line) On SDSL your download speed will be the same as you upload speed. On ADSL your download speed will ALWAYS we higher than your upload speed by whatever percentage your SP has configured on their DSLAM (Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexor). his is known as your speed profile.
So you have the profile they have asigned to the line BUT you have two other things that determine the actual throughput you will received.
1. The quality of your line which is mainly going to be determined by the distance of the phone socket in your house to the point where that cable terminates at the SP's exchange. Note this is NOT as the crow flies as cables have to go around trees, houses, follow conduits etc. The longer the line the greater the electrical resistance in that line and the greater the attenuation (reduction in signal strength)
2. Contention ratio: - Think of this like a motorway. Whilst the theoretical speed limit may be 70Mph the more cars that start traveling the the slower the average speed becomes. The exact same holds true in networks, which is WHY in the evening when every Tom, Dick and Harry are using the internet your throughput goes for a ball of chalk. Whilst try again at 4am and you will be rocking and rolling BIG Time.
Additional to the above is the ISP's financial commitment to their network. All corporations need to make profit to keep their shareholders happy. This desire is a trade of between the investment they should be making in their infrastructure to keep you the customer happy and what they save by maximising the return on what they have already deployed to keep costs down and the shareholders happy. It's a bit like train companies, keep raising prices but not spending more on new trains. What happens is customer get p***ed off and the train service becomes unreliable.
Now another thing you need to know is that there are two types of ISP. Those that own their own infrastructure and those that resell BT's ADSL services. If your ISP is asking you for a MAC code (Migration Access Code) then they are simply reselling BT's own service which is why when something goes wrong irrespective of who you are with a BT engineer comes to your house (note the cable to your house UNLESS you are with Virgin will always belong to BT).
Then you have those that have their own DSLAM's located within a BT exchange. These guys will NOT ask you for a MAC code because all they do is unplug your cable from the BT DSLAM and patch it into their own.
All of this is known as LLUB ( Local loop Unbundling) and was a system brought about world wide to break the monopoly by the old world incumbents such as BT and AT&T.
A final complication is the technical aptitude of the guys at the help desk when you call for assistance. As a a professional I can tell you these guys are my pet hate. They are IGNORANT and are only reading questions off a cheat sheet. Let me put it into perspective. A qualified and experienced IT engineer will be earning in excess of 70K per annum. Do you really think these call centre staff are earning that...NO, WHY NOT. Because if they were professionals and actually knew what they were doing they would not be working in a call centre. If you want to know why you are getting lousy service and the run around it's because the muppet you are talking to knows only marginally more than you do. They are a filter to sift out the bulk of the complaints from the actual techy guys located somewhere else.
I have designed and built global networks and take exception when I call to report and issue and get asked, is your modem turned on, what operating system are you using (huh I use Linux well that throws them into a spin.....errrm what????? )
Hope this helps your understanding
NOTE: -I do not work for an ISP but rather I am an engineer for one of the large manufacturers that sell them the actual DSL equipment. -
Long story short this country is way back in internet tech, well connection wise.Years ago Japan had 100mb God knows what speed they have these days.Long way to go and having a fast pc is not everything really.
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Hi,
I pay for 8Mbps with AOL and get 0.36Mbps (as just tested). Have accepted that broadband with 0.36 Mbps makes the un-missable......un-watchable.
Welcome to Wales. -
Anyone wanna beat me when it comes to s**t talktalk connections? 66.23 Kbps (0.06 Mbps)
Can't wait until 2 weeks when I pay for the cancellation fee and move to sky, this connection is b******t. -
I'm so happy AOL change my broadband speed from 2MB to 6Mb! Test working very well. My results 5,8 MB for download 0,3 for upload. Thanks!
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Getting 8.46Mbps download and 0.39 upload form Virgin Media at 1600hrs on a Friday afternoon. Paying £20/month for size M package which they has been upgraded to a 'up to 10Mb transfer speed. Certainly good enough for browsing, email, and video clips.
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sorry, but 21.04 Mbps from a 20 meg connection - you should have gone to virgin.
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I was on Telewest 10mb service and getting speeds of 4.5 mb. Upgraded to 20 mb service and now getting 5.67 mb. Although speed sems okay could obviously be better.
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recently joined Post Office OKish but Jon is right, you eventually learn more by yourself than the 'technical help ' people, and I found your site most informative, get just over 1 mb, with max poss of 2, I can use this as I am no great user of the web, but one thing bugs me at weekends I can only get max of 1, which translates to an actual 0.8. Why are the lines busier at weekends. Get cut off for no apparent reason usually several times in an hour, but not all the time have whole days of continual conection, bliss. ISP says they cannot report fault unless BT lowest download is exceeded? with what seems an intermttent fault what chance have I. Will continue to put up with it unless someone tells me I can find a way round it. Thanks
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Thanks to John for an honest and helpful brief on how broadband works. To add to the forum of malcontents, I have been with Pipex for the last 5 years, and had no problems until recently. For no apparent reason, my download speeds deteriorated from an average of 3 Megs to around .2 of a Meg (that is point 2 of a Meg)! Professional checks have given the all-clear inside, and I am now left with BT blaming Pipex and Pipex blaming BT. Still trying to find someone who speaks English coherently, and has sufficient knowledge/authority to address the problem without giving me smoke and mirrors! Does this buck-passing sound familiar?
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was with virgin rubbish
was with aol rubbish
am with bt rubbish
when contract ends going with o2 -
With Orange, have the 2mb package, had it for 4 years - great service...until the last 3 months, now constantly drops down to 0.1 mpbs download speeds. Lots of time talking to the helpdesk idiots (using a checklist of b.s.). Interesting discovery recently - service was restored "magically" overnight with the ISP performace going back up to 1.6mb, but I'm still only getting 100kbps ... 3 days later I'm back up to almost 1mbps... the problem - IP profile is constantly whacked (by BT) becuase of disruption on the line (new houses being built nearby??) - the issue - any interference at all and BT will reduce your IP profile after a short period of disrupted service, and not reset it until several days later - checkout www.speedtester.bt.com and you can see this in the test result - apparently if you have a low IP profile the way to "fix" it is to switch your router on/off several times then wait 24 hours...hope that helps ...
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Paying for up to 8 meg with o2. Test reveals Download: 6.1 Mbps and Upload: 1.03 Mbps. Can't really complain!
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I should be on 10Mb connection from Virgin, which I was getting until this week, its now dropped to between 3.5Mb and 5Mb.
This is the first time I've used broadband genie and it seems pretty good.
What I tend to do is also use about 2 or 3 speed checks. Visualware have a good one and thinkbroadband. -
This is excellent
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Just did the test @ 22:30 d/load speed 0.77Mbps upload speed 0.37Mbps Sky tell me I am "upto 8MB" no wonder I cannot watch Sky news on my iphone properly and the connection on laptop is rubbish!!
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I pay £25 a month for my broadband with BT ( up to 20mb, unlimited use) I should get 7-5 to 9 Mb in the area i live in.I am 100meters from exchange but all speed checks i have done over 24hour periods give results of only 1-1Mb to 2Mb with down load speeds of 3.3kb/s at 16-00hours to 500kb/s at 04-00hours my neighbor who is with virgin up to 10Mb contract is three times faster (if not more). When i have tried to phone BT the persons i am talking to cannot speak English coherently,so i do not understand them and they do not understand me, Scottish accent maybe, and they also do not seem to have much knowledge about the subject they are there to help customers with.Because i am an old **** and only been using a computer for a few months i thought the problem may be with me,so i have been getting my neighbor to deal with BT one phone call 40min and one at 55min the last one he put the phone down on them because he was fed up repeating himself over and over again very frustrating and getting nowhere with finding out why things download so slowly.Considering i live in the center of a capital city, where and who gets this mythical up to 20Mb.I still have 8months of my contract to go but there is no way i am going to pay £25=£12 line rental for the service i am getting.As i said to a call center person at BT you can not get blood from a stone he could not speak English sufficiently to understand what i meant even when i tried to explain .
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Was with Tiscali until the summer paying £17 a month for about 1.9 Mbps on a good day at the right time of day. Moved to BT, paying £9.99 a month for an 8meg service but was advised my line would only give me 4Meg. To start with I was getting around 2.5Mbps but after getting an accelerator on the box I can now get speeds of 3.7Mb and once 4.3Mb. Speed tests that show a map of other users speeds show that I have the best speed in my village. Some of my friend have also changed to BT and are aqually pleased by the improvement in service.
I'm not complaining,
Ian -
2840.62 Kbps (2.77 Mbps)
Upload speed 375.63 Kbps (0.37 Mbps)
from bt, terrible!!!!
1.2 miles from the exchange on option 3, give us a break!!!! -
I had 1.41 download and 0.45 upload. I have just ran another test on another site that suggested I was recieving 3.5 download. Bt say I can recieve 3.0. However being on Orange with free internet at no extra charge within my mobile contract from an offer 3 years ago that the speeds are okay for what i 'don't' pay, considering i will only ever recieve the same speeds in my street until june 2010 according to BT. it looks like ultra high speed isn't coming my way for a while yet. so i'm pleased with the result. guess i got a lucky deal when i did.
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did your test which said download speed of 0.23 then went on your link to test the line speed which read 5.0 I am confused
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I am still confused. does anyone answer these comments
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Reading the above comments I have got my sanity back but still confused. I am not a tecky wizz but after trying to explain to Tiscali over and over again our problems including drop off problems and seemed to be co-incidentaly related to security updates from Windows, blaming our router yet again and during which he was obviously reading a help desk script until he put the phone down. I have been demented by the so called 'Customer help Desk' which we have the pleasure of paying per minute and still struggle to know what to do to get a consitant Internet connection. bbc iplayer is a joke. Who do we get a wireless Internet/Phone line connection from when there is no Cable suppliers to our village. I dont want to suscribe to Sky and our previous supplier Orange were not much better.
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Can I make this Faster ? Many Thanks Jon
Download speed achieved during the test was - 1722 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 400-2000 Kbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :2336 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 2000 Kbps
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I actually find it quite amusing how people can say " I only live 3 miles away from the exchange"
ADSL Broadband that runs through your BT telephone line is slow unless you live around 500 yards away.
Reasons for this are: BT Copper lines were installed years before broadband came into play, which means that they aren't designed to carry an adsl signal.
You may be 3 miles away in a straight line distance but the actual cable length is going to be around twice as much as that.
Noise rates on the line, such as telephone signal also interfere with broadband speed, so realistically if you are living a long way from your exchange you should try putting your broadband router, or modem into the first phone socket in your home, removing all non broadband equipment. Thus lowering the amount of noise on the line.
The list is pretty much endless, at the end of the day the lines just aren't designed for broadband, and until the government pull theyre wallets out of their pockets and install fibre optic lines everywhere broadband is always going to have its downfalls -
ripoff britain we are the laughing stock of the world with our broadband check out european bbands 10meg up 10meg down their uploads are faster than most of our downloads virgin 20meg 0.78 upload 50meg 1.5 upload and we all put up with it theyr all gona laf at us
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oh check out samknows for bband
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well im with sky on the unlilmited package b4 iupgraded from everyday i was gettin around 10 megs down and 0.50 upload speeds now i get (3.64 Mbps) download (0.63 Mbps) upload i was hoping to get around 15megs download but hey thats isp for ya
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BT have sent 4 engineers to my house and apparently the line tests fine on every occasion (7mbs). My ip profile gets reset (6mbs) but within days/hours the profile gets reduced (currently 1.5mbs). It appears that my ip profile gets reduced at peak hours when other users reduce the speed of my line - when the sensor (rambo) at the exchange detects that my line speed is below my ip profile then it makes an automatic reduction. As a result when I next log on and my line speed is back up to 7mbs it's my ip profile that becomes the limiting factor to the actual speed I can achieve. Surely this system is bonkers! I accept that my line speed will go down at peak times but why should this have a permanent effect on my speed at non-peak hours? BT now tell me that problems with my upload speed (consistently 448kbs) are affecting my ip profile and hence my download speed. Is this just another load of junk or is there any possibility that this is true? I am at my wits end trying to get someone at BT that has the technical knowledge or language skills to be able to discuss this
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Im with aol and i've been upgraded to 8mb/s although Im getting around 6.8, but it's my upload speed which is the problem, it's just 0.35, the router's showing 448k. Surely 0.35 is low for 8mb/s??
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I am soooo confused with connection speeds! I am with AOL at the moment and according to a similar test (I can't use this one at the moment as I'm not on my own computer) - my current address is giving me 0.8Mbps download and 0.17Mbps upload - which to me seems to sound rubbish but I find the speed fine - I spoke to BT today and I can empathise with others I spent a total of 2 hours repeating myself over and over (a whole other story!!) I am moving house and need to reconnect the line there which I can do for free (saving £100+) which is why I was choosing them! and their site says I will only get half a meg and my current address gets 5meg - however on the same test for speed (as above) it said that the new address would get 1.1Mbps download and 0.19Mbps upload - which is faster than my current one?? Can someone reassure me that I have the correct understanding of this and maybe give me any recommendations? I live in Exmouth in Devon.
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Im with bt's 8meg option. I was told my line speed would only reach 6.5 meg. I now know that my profile is set to 6meg . great sounds brilliant!!! funny thing is that most of the time i get 1.5meg or 3.5 on a good day. why in off peak times should i get less than what my line can achieve its stupid and ofcom dont do nothin about it. Its as bad as FSA with banks. Virgin is in all the towns and villiages around me but not mine, if only they would install a line i would switch in a heart beat. My girlfriend has the 50 meg option and gets 49, If only i had a quarter of that!!
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Dale - surely the solution to your problem is to move in with your girlfriend?...
I posted on 17 Dec - since then I've fitted BT's iPlate (which essentially isolates the bell wire from your main BT socket) - I also ran speed test directly from the main socket by pulling off the plate all together and plugging directly into the main line - and discovered I can get 5 MB downloads.
So I now have a stable 2MB download rate thanks to the iPlate - now trying to figure out how to get rid of the rest of the "noise" that is causing me to lose the 3MB between the test socket and the normal socket.. my house was built 4 years ago and appears that the maximum I can hope to get is 5MB until BT decide to upgrade our exchange....
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I moved to my new address on 16 Dec 2009nd imhgave all the details of my new address to the customer care people and i also indicated that i wished to transfer my phoneand and account to this new address. I also indicated that i wished to carry on with my monthly debit payments. Since Dec 2009 in spite of numerous phone calls i mnpow understand that my account has been changed to quarterly payments without my agreement and i understand that my account is in arrears to the tune of £184.35.
I am bitterly disapppointed with the P.O. and am seriously thinking of changing my ISP
Your comments and explanations of these matters would be more than welcomed -
I live in the USA but will be taking my Sony Vaio laptop to the UK for 2-1/2 months.
I have BT as my landline in the UK. Opinions vary on quality although O2 seems to be good. I need a fast reliable connection to connect with my office and clients (I am a real estate broker) and download pictures of property while in the UK. I also need a reasonably priced provider where I can cancel without penalty. Any ideas from the UK would be appreciated. -
I am at my wits end with aol-i have been given every excuse under the sun as to why my connection fails,from the wrong leaves on the line and to the wrong type of snow ( god im getting muddled now) - i have even been told im not registered with aol !! doh -like for ten years !!! I get told i MUST connect through my main socket or else- but i cant its not practical for me to do so,i have no means to have my comp there ,then they get huffy and say " well that is why " etc etc -bit i can use this comp set up for months at a time ,so why suddenly is it no good ?
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Hi,
Have AOL, quoted as >8Mbps. In 2009 was getting download of 0.36Mbps, now in 2010 getting 0.13Mbps. Is it possible that putting a comment onto this Forum makes things worse? -
I am with Tiscali, now Talk Talk, cheapest package around @ 8MB for £18.48 p/m (all in ! ), yes they have recently messed me about with the 'hostile' buy out, so i argued my point till i was blue in the face, eventually getting 1st 6 months of a 18 month contract @ 1/2 price + a free wireless router, i'm sure it's pure coincidence but my download speed shot up a few days ago, i was getting between 1 Mb & 1.2 Mb per second now it's averaging 5.5 Mb per second ! ....all in all i think i came out of this very well !
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Recently changed from O2 to TalkTalk, have found a dramatic increase in speed. Granted, O2 could only provide a maximum of 8mb/s (more like 1.5). Called TalkTalk, who estimated my line speed at 18mb/s (consistantly 11mb/s).
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Hi could you please let me know which plug in I need to download the Broadband "speed test player", I don't seem to have it, thanks
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Have been on BT option 3 (up to 8 mb's) for quite a while now. My local exchange was recently upgraded to adsl2 (up to 20 mb's) but I have been told that my maximum speed will only be around 6.5 mb's (my normal maximum) and even after testing my telephone line BT themselves say I should be able to obtain at least 12mb's. I live less than half a mile from the exchange but my download speed has not altered. In spite of BT's comments regarding my line speed increase I am then told by a different department my line will not support this speed. I am totally confused and somewhat disappointed.
Dave. -
9.26mbps download and 0.46 upload :D!
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Date 17/05/10 12:05:45
Download speed 124.88 Kbps (0.12 Mbps)
Upload speed 186.83 Kbps (0.18 Mbps)
Upto 8Meg? around 1/60 of that.
Just Switched to Orange around 4 days ago. After finally installing it and having to phone customer service (The guy who could not speak English Properly on the phone had completely misspelt the password I gave over the phone which was a fantastic start, and I was unable to get the password from the e-mail, because Orange were having an issue with their e-mails reaching their customers..) Anyway it started okay, felt fairly swift, then the next night it plummeted to what it is now, which comparing it to all of the above tests, seems unbelievably awful. I attempted to phone Orange on Saturday, but they have an automated message saying that their experiencing problems and to only phone if it's vital.
Like an idiot, I assumed that 4 days of this supposed 'problem' and the thousands of customers they have would result in the issue being fixed, but like most companies, their inability to honour any commitment seems to be non-existent. Needless to say, after only being with Orange for 4 days, I'm already looking around for another provider, despite some of the negative reviews here, Virgin seems to have a fairly consistently high speed and seems to be fairly reliable.
I think what has been mentioned before about Ofcom enforcing some regulations in terms of the service we get would be brilliant, because 'upto' just doesn't cut it.
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you should all try BE broadband i know it sounds daft but i found it quite bad but other people love it and for around 25 a month just for broadband and thats for a 3 month contract so after 2 month you dont like it well you can cancel it customer services and technical side are good freindly and know what they are talking about the reason i say its quite bad is because i live 2.5 kil from the exchange so my line is pretty unstable but oh deary me i might have to phone my arch enemy up VIRGIN MEDIA if they will have me i gave them a hard time hope they forgive me hee hee
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im on vodafone mobile nroadband,
i regualy test my speed n it always varies from 1.5mb to 2.83mb its not the advertised 3.5mb but its ok all the same -
Broadband was fine for last 6 months, then dropped to download 104 kbps upload 210 kbps.
Sky forced me to buy a new router at £28. now speeds are 192download and 339 upload. I have to ring them every morning, they reconfigure the moden and my speed rises to 352download. By the evening its back to 192. Its so slow I cannot watch any vidoes or listen to music on You tube as the buffering drives me mad. -
I have been with tiscali ad infinitum then they were bought out by talktalk. My speed has always been great using a Belkin router. I started having issues with my bt line 3 months ago but still the broadband was great, then they 'allegedly' fixed the line and I noticed a slow down in the speed. Last week the Belkin died, talktalk were great sending me out a new Thompson router which I set up easily and I also treated myself to a new dual core laptop. Sadly my speed has plummeted, I called bt out again and sure enough they hadn't any worksheets for the previous work and the cable to my property had corroded so they changed it. Has it made any difference? NO. Having been using an antiquated machine and a Belkin router for years with no problems my speed is now so slow that I want to throw it out the window. I may just go and get a new Belkin router. But I'll be talking to talktalk first:-).
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IT gave me download speed 180 MBPS and uload speed 150 MBPS
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strange my talk talk connection is very slow at peak times but the results are:
D/L 14.29mbps
U/L 0.83mbps
at peak time of 18:45hrs
Should i be complaining?
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Hiya,
I used to have the same problems, but I found it's usually the broadband provider "turning down" your speed. Get in touch with them and tell them you have a problem. They will tell you to change your DSL filter etc. etc. , if you haven't already done this, then do it. They will usually threaten to send a BT engineer round to your house to check your line which may cost you £140, which usually scares most people off, just because they know most people are not familiar with what they are doing. When I told them my brother in law works for BT (which he does), suddenly my broadband speed went from 0.5 to 6 meg like they promised at the start. This particular example was from Talk Talk, but other broadband providers do the same thing.
Also a quick tweak is to right click on your connection (usually bottom right corner of your screen, looks like a TV and click "repair" this will clear your DSl line of rubbish and should help also. Another is to download TCP Optimiser, it's free and I would recommend downloading it from CNET. Just adjust the speed at the top to the speed you should be getting and it will show a big difference.
Hope this helps. -
I'm annoyed with Talk-Talk and their bad software. Problem is that when I had dial-up a mate persisted in sending me full size photos of his yachting exploits. These attachments would stall Outlook Express and as I had a bad line as well (tree-rubs, corroded joints, water in the manhole etc) it was a total disaster. OE had a menu for blocking files. I chose "When message exceeds 250KB do not download it from the server". Eventually I got around to drilling a wall, getting rid of all the daisy chained phone extensions and getting the broadband to work. It does however appear that the 250KB limit that I set has migrated over. Internet works fine, Outlook Express now only receives, webmail has to be used for sending. Photographs still cannot be received but the menu in OE for adjusting allowable file sizes has gone! Looks like they've blocked Joe Public from adjusting server settings. OK its a budget service but talking to Indian or Philipino "helplines" is no help at all. Anyone know a GOOD ISP? Only 7 months to go til the end of contract.
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just been reading the comments on this page . i am with talk talk and service is rubbish , but i switched my dsl cable and bought a high speed dsl cable,put that on and now getting 4.2 mb on a regular basis where as i was lucky to get 2.0 mb before , i live three miles from the exchange
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I've been with talk talk a few years and basically they a ok and cheap but when things go wrong things go wrong and when you try to sort it you'l find that they have around 200 line tecnical supports(you will know what i mean if you are with them).Im waiting to try O2 when they decide to come in my area because they have nearly the same offer now : )
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We have recently gone to sky for broadband and receive aywhere between 10 and 15mps and that is on the upto 20mps deal. Our upload speed is .95mps and that is constant, never changes. We have had both bt and virgin and neither we were happy with. We had upto 8meg on bt and we only ever got between 1 and 2 meg and with virgin we paid for upto 20meg and yes we did get upto 10 meg but they traffic manage their broadband throughout the day so more often than not we only got about 3 meg download speed which made things incredibly difficult
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If ur with Smallworld do not complain about speed as this can happen I have a 10mb line
1460.07 Kbps (1.43 Mbps) Down Speed
331.72 Kbps (0.32 Mbps) Up Speed
This is there way to brass off anyone who complains and that was because I complained about the bill this month -
Ok, I understand the hype about slower speeds on ADSL and so on, but answer this - last week according to BT speedtester (Note all tests done on this server are logged for your ISP to check with BT) I was getting 2.2meg on a 7150kbps line. On saturday a BT engineer is working on the pole right outside my house, I asked him if this would interfere with my broadband - he said no he was doing an instalation for a house up the road. Now yesterday I check my speed again with BT speedtester, as I have an ongoing issue with broadband speed dropping off and eventually no broadband, I was getting this before I moved to Talktalk from Orange, 6 weeks ago, now I have moved the problem is worse, but checking my speed again I now recieve 1356 kbps on a 2 meg line. How is this possible? I have had a BT engineer to the house, who said small fault to the extension my skybox is plugged into, he fixed that and disconnected the 2 other extensions as they are no longer needed. My main boix in the house has a ADSL v1.0 splitter fitted to it.
This was put in by a BT engineer last year, to stop my broadband dead at my computer. Now last week because of the ongoing issue a Talktalk (Cube engineer) comes to the house who takes the front plate off the ADSL v1.0 and replaces the front part and gives me a new router. After hes gone 20 mins my speed drops again. Now talktalk are telling me the fault is my responsibility, even if the BT engineer checks the and does not come to my house line I have to pay for it.
Talktalk clearly states that if the fault is not at your home talktalk have to pay for it as you pay them for the line rental etc, therefore there responsibility, so why am I being lied to all the time - I clearly caught outr last night a talktalk customer service representative who said I was getting 8 mbit connection, when I quote bt speedtest data to her of 1388kbps on 2 meg line she hangs up. This morning Im getting 1356kbps - this goes on for weeks getting lower and lower, till no broadband, then I phone again, within ten mins I have full 8 meg broadband agin. I have had this issue for 2 and a half years now. First with Orange, now with Talktalk. -
upload of 0.23 and download of 0.11...
Thanks BT and your "up to x speed" broadband service....grrrr.... -
I have been with tesco.net for approx eight years and over the last 2 years had some problems with my Broadband but I remain with them as their customer service is second to none and they always refund phone calls, plus extra for the distress when the error is found to be with themselves or as in my case due to B.T. fingers crossed these occurrences are only rare and seem to happen on all networks. I use Tesco Home Phone also and the service is excellent.
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I am not from UK, but from Romania. And it seems we are spoiled with good speed. I ran speedtest.net several times and I have averaged 48.96 to 50.61 Mbits upload and between 1.07 and 2.77 Mbits download. As to ping time (pingtest.net) I get a steady 2 ms!
Reading your complaints here I'd say I get good service. It's broadband optical fiber and it costs me a mere 5 pounds a month. -
... one more thing to add: If there's anything to complain it's that my ISP promised this broadband to be of 100 Mbps (that what the contract says) and I never get more than 50 Mbps.
The provider is RDS-RCS, which covers much of Transylvania (and probably 80% of homes in my town).
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