Which speed tester is accurate?

[Proto]

Living in a rural area I use an EE 4G data only (unlimited) sim for my home broadband. MicroTik antenna and modem mounted on the roo& of m6 house. It works reasonably well but on occasion we do get buffering when streaming tv.

Running a speed test just now (quiet Saturday morning) Ookla reports 20-25 Mbps. Running a test on Fast.com or Thinkbroadband I get much higher speeds, 75-80 Mbps.

Which should I trust?

Do EE throttle download speed on unlimited data contracts? I notice that Vodafone, for example, state “Speed: fastest available”.

[Christopher_G]

Hi @Proto

Welcome to the community.

Are you having problems with your service or just interested in the speeds?

Did your plan come with a router? If so, which one?

Chris

[Proto]

Are you having problems with your service or just interested in the speeds?

To be honest, not really. We occasionally get buffering when streaming TV or film (Netflix, Prime etc.), but it's not a huge problem so far

I am more interested in understanding why I get such different reuses over the three testers I've used. However, as demand in the house has buildt up, working from home, Zoom and such like, I want to make sure that I am getting what I am paying for, and not being restricted in some way. Is it possible that EE detects Ookla and restricts the download speed for some reason?

Did your plan come with a router? If so, which one?

No, I bought my own router, also a MicroTik device.

I am effectively out of contract with EE and just want to make sure I am getting the best speed/service for the money, but I have been happy with the service so far.

I note Vodafone, for example. make the statement that on some of their sim only data contracts, "Speed: fastest available". EE make no such statement that I can see.

[Christopher_G]

OK thanks for explaining more, @Proto. 🙂

I'm not sure why the different testing methods would be different. 

When did you originally take out the plan? I'll take a look at the terms.

Chris

[Proto]

When did you originally take out the plan? I'll take a look at the terms.

Late May or early June 2020

[mikeliuk]

Hi @Proto ,

If you see measured bandwidth which is an outlier compared to other measurements, it's most likely due to the target server you are testing against and it may be further away or congested.

One reason I like speedtest.net is the ability to pick your target server such as a known-fast one in London, the closest, or one across the country. Fast.com is likely to be more accurate for judging Netflix performance which should also have inbuilt functionality to measure as well.

[Proto]

@mikeliuk, thanks for that. Testing again, instead of letting Ookla choose the server, I selected Vodaphone Bracknell and instantly got much faster speed, over 70Mbps, same result with Vodafone Watford. Results, back to back, closely match Fast.com and TBB now.

I think I'm satisfied with that. Many thanks. I'll sleep easy. 😀