Let me chime in with some comments here..
DSL or any Internet speed test is vulnerable to dozens of unknown variables.
here are just a few....
First, the speed is only rated from your device to the first device on the providers network. After that you compete with the other users out to the Internet.
Second, the connection from your provider is ALWAYS oversubscribed. IE if they sell (100) 3 MEG DSLs they will not have 300 Meg of connection to their provider. It is a very complex formula for computing the "pipe size".
Third, every provider that connects to every other provider is just like #2.
Fourth, internet connections are often rated in bits per second and downloads are rated in BYTES per second. (a factor of 8 differential)
so if you d/l a file and see ~200KB per second that is ~1600KBits per second.
Fifth, the load on the test server can also impact the speed test. I ran 4 tests each from 2 different computers on the same provider. All the came back radically different. (and we were using special test softwre to check all the local site variables)
Sixth, the rest of your house's computers or even the applications on your computer can impact the speed. A friend had tons of spyware on her computer, ran spybot to clean it and the speed rating jumped up! Special software can actually show this.. see
PRTG Network Monitor - intuitive network monitoring software
Lastly, Internet connections between you and the server are also part of what you just measured-- think highway with an accident.road construction- today it takes 1 hour from home to Aunt Jenny's, tomorrow it takes 2 because of the accident or road construction....
So if you do a test from your home, the most accurate test of what you have is from the home device to your provider.....Most providers have a server or website just for this.....
Now the inevitable point that is argued is "I pay for a X speed, and (fill in the blank) says I have Y speed and I am not getting what I paid for."
The Internet providers do everything in their power to give you what they can, but there are things that are beyond their control... Think UPS and shipping-- they do their best, but at times weather and other things prevent that delivery from making it work..... they have a service level agreement (SLA) for the price... the consumer grade highspeed does not have an SLA. Business grade highspeed will go so far to say round trip time from X to Y will be usually 30 mseconds or less in the Continental US... (some faster some slower) and this is actually written in the contract!
anyway hope this helps explain some of it.....
and yes, I do this for a living..... Actually have a few customers that watch that SLA and if it hits 35 milliseconds for periods, they get refunds.....
Later,
Jim
Could this be some kind of virus?
