Sunday, July 6, 2008

Verizon Speed Test Lies

I decided to try Verizon's speed test found here;
http://www2.verizon.net/micro/speedtest/hsi/

They sure like to lie!
Why do I say that? Well th
e results are skewed to say the least.
Here's what I mean.

The results from Verizon's test page;







Download speeds seem a bit low considering I have a 5 Mbps connection.
The upload speed is way out of line. My ISP caps the max at 384 Kbps.


So I go to www.speedtest.net
This looks more like it should be;











To verify it, I go to www.testmy.net

Here are the results;

:::.. Download Stats ..:::
Download Connection is:: 4817 Kbps about 4.8 Mbps (tested with 6144 kB)
Download Speed is:: 588 kB/s
Tested From:: http://testmy.net/ (Main)
Test Time:: 2008/07/06 - 1:43pm
Bottom Line:: 84X faster than 56K 1MB Download in 1.74 sec
Tested from a 6144 kB file and took 10.448 seconds to complete
Download Diagnosis:: Looks Great : 9.53 % faster than the average for host
User Agent:: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.15) Gecko/20080625 Ubuntu/7.10 (gutsy) Firefox/2.0.0.15 [!]

:::.. Upload Stats ..:::
Upload Connection is:: 356 Kbps about 0.4 Mbps (tested with 1013 kB)
Upload Speed is:: 43 kB/s
Tested From:: http://testmy.net/ (Main)
Test Time:: 2008/07/06 - 1:46pm
Bottom Line:: 6X faster than 56K 1MB Upload in 23.81 sec
Tested from a 1013 kB file and took 23.322 seconds to complete
Upload Diagnosis:: May need help : running at only 76.89 % of your hosts average
User Agent:: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.15) Gecko/20080625 Ubuntu/7.10 (gutsy) Firefox/2.0.0.15 [!]


Let's verify it one more time from here;
http://myspeed.visualware.com/

The results are as follows;

Download speed 4668 Kbps
Upload speed 364 Kbps
QOS 96 %
RTT 22 ms
Max Delay 113 ms


From 3 other testing sites my download range is 4668 Kbps to 4817 Kbps
and my upload range is from 356 Kbps to to 367 Kbps yet Verizon says
my Download speed is 2861 Kbps (2.86 Mbps) and
my Upload speed is 476 Kbps.

So what's the deal?
Why does Verizon cook the speed test?
I think I know why.
The download speeds are different because Verizon's packages have a max download speed of 3 Mbps.
They probably use a random generator to pick out numbers when the speed is near or over 3 Mbps.
In the case of the upload speeds, it is considered a low speed for their
specs (768 Kbps) so they juice the upload numbers to make it look
like you are uploading files faster then you actually are.
In this case, they are saying my upload speed is about 25% higher
then the max allowed by my ISP.

You can bet that if you call them up with speed issues they will direct you to their speed test site.
And I will also bet you a cup of coffee from my company's cafeteria (It's free!) that they won't even listen to you should you quote speed test results from other sites.

Ah! The joys of manipulating numbers.
It makes the customer feel good while he's getting screwed.
LOL!


TaZMAn

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, when my Verizon DSL was so slow that I longed for dial-up, a Verizon field tech came to my home and used the Speakeasy Speed Test to check my service; he said it was more accurate. It turned out that the local hub was bottle-necked and sqeezing area service down to a crawl - which I proved and convinced them to add more equipment. The network supervisor said that the Verizon speed test reads from the wrong side of the hub and reflects clear un-congested traffic flow, whereas my actual line was being choked by too many customers being tied thru a single port on the other side of that hub.

mudiyaauy said...

Great stuff about the verizon speed test..I want the help please do favour for me thanks in advance,the help is that i want to boost my internet speed like uploading,downloading speed becaz,My internet speed is very slow i checked the speed in the site http://www.ip-details.com/internet-speed-test/ ..It shows the results then only i came to know my speed is slow.so help me..any tips?

TaZMAn said...

Try using this link rather then the one you are using.
http://speedtest.net/

I tried the link you provided and the one I usually use. Your link said my speeds were 1/2 of what they really are.

Another good testing site is here;
http://webspeed.kessels.com/YourSpeed3/index.html

Not much you can do about increasing speeds if your internet provider is the cause.

If it's really slow and you have enough documentation to back it up, you can call your ISP and file a complaint and a request for service. More then likely they won't do anything as they have your money and probably have the market locked up so you don't have a choice of another provider.

Armil@verizon internet said...

Really? this speed test is a lie? Oh thank you so much for informing us. We will be now aware about it.