Can ISPs 'cheat' speedtest.net?

Zewp

Zewp

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I've often wondered this, as often times when my adsl account is severely underperforming on download speed, if I try speedtest.net it shows standard download speeds for my line speed.

Can internet providers unshape speedtest.net connections so that it displays results not reflective of how the account is really performing?
 
Of course. They can set up rules to throttle certain sites (e.g. rapidshare) - I'd be very surprised if those rules couldn't boost the prioritization too.
 
Yes. It is most definitely possible for ISP's to give speedtest & pingtest.net hosts priority over normal websites.

This is just one of the many reasons why I don't like to do speed tests purely based on those sites. I usually download from local mirrors such as download.microsoft.com or perform trace routes inside Command Prompt to like www.google.co.za.

Downloading YouTube videos is another perfect real world example for a decent speed test.
 
I'm pretty sure that's what's currently happening to me on the IS backbone with OpenWeb then. Downloads are horribly slow, Steam times out before it connects and earlier when I had to RDP to a server I had to switch to another account because the IS account was too slow to stream the RDP. I'd open a folder and it would only open 15 seconds later on my side.
 
Another question, is it legal for ISPs to do this? Can it not be considered a form of lying to your customer?
 
Graal said:
Another question, is it legal for ISPs to do this? Can it not be considered a form of lying to your customer?
Click to expand...
Are you buying a leased line with uncontended/dedicate internet... or are we talking about a shaped, best effort consumer broadband product?
 
ambo said:
Are you buying a leased line with uncontended/dedicate internet... or are we talking about a shaped, best effort consumer broadband product?
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's a shaped account. Just wondering if it's strictly legal, as it could be used as a way to confuse the customer about how much he is being shaped.
 
Graal said:
Another question, is it legal for ISPs to do this? Can it not be considered a form of lying to your customer?
Click to expand...

They've got themselves covered. At no point do they hide that certain elements are shaped and other elements are being prioritized.

Morally, it's wrong - but legally they're in the clear.

However - if they affect the shaping on an account marketed as "Unshaped", then they're in trouble.
 
This is one of the reason I'm not with Openweb anymore.. :) My speed test where great but my average download speed was terrible.. getting about double that now with Mweb.. Openweb clearly needs to start putting in some effort or they going down fast.. They never billed me with the correct amount, I even got an invoice for last month from Openweb(still the incorrect amount) and I moved over to Mweb 2 months ago. Openweb is in serious need of a customer service overhaul.
 
I have to admit, I'm also very strongly contemplating moving to Mweb Uncapped. I used to be very happy on Openweb when I was on the VB backbone, but ever since losing that account they've been awful. It seems that with every account on the other backbones you have to compromise. Use IS, you basically get an after-hours account that flies, but during office hours it's unusable. Get BCS, and everything goes at half-speed, even after-hours, when these accounts are supposedly unshaped, use DSLHeaven, and you get an account that simply sucks, but it has Heaven in the name.

And every time you submit a support ticket, they tell you the issue is on your end, despite other people on the forums saying they're getting the exact same issues.

I no longer see the point in paying a premium for a service that sucks so badly.
 
speedtest.net was loading and woking fine yesterday (sunday) but today is just refuses to even load the "begin test". so yes isp does some sort of preventions. the tech said the other day that we not doing any thing to prevent any speedtest site. but i dont believe them. worse isp in the country.
 
Telkom.
so frustrated hard even browsing the web. phoned 10210 again and the tech "gurus" from telkom did as rutein check up and reset the port as usual and generate a fault and game me the ref no etc. he also said that there is a NETWORK probelm in our area as the 2 month ago when i phoned them and they did nothing about that. one thing i cant understand is that yesterday i could browse the web and watch youtube videos just like 80% and today not even 5% :(
 
XTM:
Do yourself a favour and find out what your ADSL stats are (line attenuation, SNR/noise margin, line speed - both for upstream & downstream) and post them here. Also tell us what brand & model ADSL modem you have.

Secondly, do a trace route to like www.google.co.za and post the results here too.
To do a trace route, open up Command Prompt and run: tracert www.google.co.za
You can right-click, mark and select all the text, right-click again and paste it in your post.
 
Tracing route to www.facebook.com [69.63.189.74]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 10.0.0.2
2 47 ms 48 ms 48 ms dsl-146-56-01.telkomadsl.co.za [41.146.56.1]
3 48 ms 46 ms 42 ms tpr-ip-cat-1-vlan-913.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.43
.33.238]
4 * * * Request timed out.
5 * * * Request timed out.
6 51 ms 47 ms 46 ms 196.43.10.130
7 38 ms 37 ms 37 ms rrba-ip-lir-1-gig-2-0-0-201.telkom-ipnet.co.za [
196.43.33.5]
8 243 ms 235 ms 231 ms fra-ip-hsll-1-gig-0-1-0.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.
43.9.102]
9 250 ms 247 ms 248 ms s5-0-0-16.ipa4.lon1.bbnplanet.net [195.16.162.12
9]
10 283 ms 277 ms 271 ms vlan70.csw2.Frankfurt1.Level3.net [4.69.154.126]

11 256 ms 258 ms 245 ms ae-71-71.ebr1.Frankfurt1.Level3.net [4.69.140.5]

12 290 ms 293 ms 293 ms ae-48-48.ebr2.Paris1.Level3.net [4.69.143.146]
13 378 ms 382 ms 393 ms ae-42-42.ebr2.Washington1.Level3.net [4.69.137.5
4]
14 * 422 ms 410 ms ae-62-62.csw1.Washington1.Level3.net [4.69.134.1
46]
15 411 ms 421 ms 420 ms ae-1-60.edge3.Washington4.Level3.net [4.69.149.1
8]
16 340 ms 534 ms 316 ms FACEBOOK-IN.edge3.Washington4.Level3.net [4.53.1
16.6]
17 354 ms 348 ms 345 ms ae1.bb01.iad2.tfbnw.net [204.15.20.54]
18 333 ms 323 ms 335 ms ae1.dr02.ash2.tfbnw.net [74.119.76.79]
19 344 ms 354 ms 347 ms po1014.csw01a.ash2.tfbnw.net [74.119.76.129]
20 339 ms 355 ms 342 ms www-slb-11-01-ash2.facebook.com [69.63.189.74]

Trace complete.


i already posted my stats in other thread so here is again
ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 384 kbps 128 kbps
Line Attenuation 36.5 db 22.5 db
Noise Margin 35.0 db 14 db
netgear telkom modem
 
Okay, here's something odd with Speedtest. I've ran it multiple times today, testing my international speeds. Every time when it comes to testing upload speeds it doesn't go over 20kb/s upload, yet in the results it shows almost 40kb/s upload speeds.

How does this work?
 
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