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Originally Posted by roughbeast

BINGO! You got it. This is why non-experts like me come to this forum and try to get explained what seems inexplicable, hopefully without being patronised.

So far the explanations I have received haven't answered the key question:

How can TBB base a national survey of comparative ISP speeds on a monitoring tool that limits its devices to a single thread speed test that seems incapable of dealing with congested times of the day?

Indeed with a maximum test speed of 42Mb at one point in a 24 hour period it hasn't managed to deal with low congestion.

Do they take my average TBB result of 27Mb and multiply it up, as has been suggested, by a factor of 4 or do they just conclude that my 100Mb can only manage an average of 27Mb? ( Between 18Mb and 42Mb over 5 tests ) After all, the point of the survey, as I understand, it is to see if ISPs give customers the speed they advertise.

BTW. Sorry about the 16MB. That was a typo. I meant 12MB. I must have been dreaming about the 'Proof of Concept' trial.

Congestion is part of your connection. "Dealing with it" only makes your connection seem faster than it actually is.

Like I've said before, if you want to know the maximum speed your connection is possibly capable of if you rule out all other factors, you shouldn't be doing a speed test to begin with. Go look at your modem status page or your bill where it says which internet service you subscribe to.

If you want to know what speed your connection actually attains when doing something meaningful, such as fetching a single file, then the TBB speedtest is far more accurate. All a speedtest does is download a file for you and do the counting for you, nothing more. And that's all it's supposed to do.

For your question, which seems to be completely irrational:

How can TBB base a national survey of comparative ISP speeds on a monitoring tool that limits its devices to a single thread speed test that seems incapable of dealing with congested times of the day?

The only thing a speedtest can be used for is to measure your speed WITH congestion. If your connection can't run at full speed because of congestion, that's EXACTLY what they're designed to show.

Are you suggesting a comparative survey of ISP speeds should only look the maximum theoretical attainable speeds of your connection, under perfect conditions, and without any external influences? If so, it's easier just to ask what tariff you subscribe to. No need to test anything.

So, again, what do you find out from a speedtest? Like I've said several times in this thread:
1) If you want to know the maximum possible speed of your connection, look at your bill or your modem status page.
2) If you want to know the speed you can download a file from a certain place at a certain point in time, do a speedtest.

If a speedtest slows down because of congestion that is exactly its job. If a speed test tries to deal with congestion and hide it, it's trying to do the wrong job and doing it badly.

---------- Post added at 15:10 ---------- Previous post was at 15:05 ----------

Originally Posted by Andrewcrawford23

There is no speed test that will be able to truly give a single thread test no matter what tiem of the day, no one has unlimited bandwidht or should i say backhual ie line speed intot he server which i suspect is gbit or 10gbit for thinkbroadband with peopel getting faster and faster conention they would ned to match that upgrade in speed but dnt or cant oen of the two

Incorrect. Most single thread tests get within 90% of my max speed most times of day. Only on VM is it unlikely, and even then only on higher tariffs. Take a look at the OFCOM reports where they compare single vs. multithreaded speeds. VM sees the biggest loss in speed going from multithreaded to singlethreaded but the drop is on average usually less than 20%. Most other ISPs lose less than 10%.

---------- Post added at 15:13 ---------- Previous post was at 15:10 ----------

Originally Posted by roughbeast

You have answered my question though. Inability to counteract congestion for testing purposes seems to be a fatal flaw. TBB cannot use the monitoring tool installed on my PC, and thousands of others, as the basis for a national survey of comparative ISP speeds. Does anyone actually disagree with this conclusion? If so, on what basis?

I completely disagree.

Not dealing with congestion is the whole point of speedtests. It's not a flaw, it's doing it's intended job. Even if that's not the job you think or want it to do. The only fatal flaw is your idea of what a speed test is for.

Their national survey of comparative ISP speeds aims to compare actual attainable speeds, not theoretical maximums.

This is exactly what the TBB speedtest does and it does what it's designed for. Speedtest.net already excels at doing a pretty half-arsed job at comparing theoretical maximums, we don't need another wannabe site trying to follow suit.

There is no point comparing people's speeds if you hide everything that affects your speeds (i.e. primarily congestion). Everyone would get exactly the same as the speed their modem says they get.

---------- Post added at 15:14 ---------- Previous post was at 15:13 ----------

Originally Posted by craigj2k12

there has always been a routing error between TBB and Virgin Media users, nothing new and nothing to do with the speed test itself, mind you virgins routing to most servers is pretty crap

Routing between TBB and Virgin Media is much better than average.

---------- Post added at 15:17 ---------- Previous post was at 15:14 ----------

Originally Posted by craigj2k12

most speed test problems on VM connections are routing, there are UK servers capable of 500mbit+ but can only manage about 30/40mbit from a VM line, no matter what time of day, this has been proved by running a test to the maidenhead server on speedtest from a VM connection, then from a gigabit web server

If a speed test shows you have a low attainable speed between your location and a another location, this shows your ISP has a poor route between those locations.

The only problem there is your ISP, not the speed test. The speed test is doing its job perfectly.