Intro
Now that I have a dual-band router I wanted to run some tests to see if 5 GHz is really faster and more stable than 2.4 GHz, as my intuition was telling me. But my only 5 GHz device where I had a chance to measure was my amazon Fired HD tablet, and wouldn’t you know that it’s incapable of running speedtest (speedtest.net). The web site forced it to a mobile app version, but amazon’s app store, being limited in its offerings, doesn’t have a speedtest app!
Anyway speedtest.net runs ads pretty aggressively, which I don’t like.
So I decided to try to write my own.
This turned out to be very hard to do. It turns out I suck at Javascript.
Some details
Normally I show all my false starts in the hopes that others can learn frmo my mistakes, but my Javascript blunders are just too painful and I never did sort them out. When I use javascript methods to set page timers I got completely inconsistent and hence unreliable results. So I settled on this simplistic PHP approach to gauge download speed:
<!--?php
// - DrJ 3/2017
// the weakness of this method is that it is a single stream
echo "Date: " . date('h:i:s') . "<br-->\n";
$starttime = microtime(true);
for ($x = 0; $x < 750000; $x++) {
$string .= mt_rand(1000000,9999999);
}
echo "<!-- $string -->\n";
//start again
//echo date('h:i:s');
echo " |
\n"; $endtime = microtime(true); $timediff = $endtime - $starttime; $timediff = $timediff; //echo "php timer: starttime: " . $starttime . " endtime: " . $endtime . " diff: " . $timediff . " \n"; echo "Page load time: " . $timediff . " s \n"; // 1.04 is observed overhead of IP + tcp. try ip -s link show eth0 before and after running curl $dataset = 1.04*(strlen($string) + 200)/1000000.0; $mbps = $dataset*8.0/$timediff; echo "Mbytes downloaded in test: " . $dataset . " Mbytes \n"; echo "Bandwidth: " . $mbps ." mbps \n"; ?> |
I called the file index.php and put it on my server in a directory of my choosing, let’s say, downloadtimer, and run it. The results look like this:
Date: 07:30:33 Page load time: 6.9666068553925 s Mbytes downloaded in test: 5.460208 Mbytes Bandwidth: 6.270149142432 mbps Test again |
Conclusion
I pretty much gave up. Use fast.com instead. It’s much better than speedtest.net. There is also a mobile app for fast.com.
References and related
I just leanred there is a linux script (written in python) which runs speedtest! That is awesome. It is speedtest-cli: https://pypi.org/project/speedtest-cli/
It gives you the download speed, the upload speed. It calculates the closest server. It is really the full monty.
Everyone uses speedtest.net.
I just learned about speedcheck (speedcheck dot org). Initially it seemed promising but too often it simply doesn’t work. And its advertising is just about as aggressive as Okla’s speedtest.net that everyone uses.
Meanwhile a friend pointed out a couple superior speed test web sites. At&t’s Speedtest is a good choice. There are few if any ads, and it runs on my Fire HD tablet and it’s fun to watch. speedtest.att.com
This one seems only slightly less aggressive than speedtest.net: Internet Frog. Internet Frog works on my tablet but with limited functionality and a non-flashy interface.
This site is simplest of all so probably the best: fast.com. It’s run by Netflix who have an obvious interest in helping users establish what their download speed is. It only displays download speed by default, but just click Show more info and you will get ping time and upload speed as well. Also, they actually explain in a transparent way what the heck they are doing: https://medium.com/netflix-techblog/building-fast-com-4857fe0f8adb. And most importantly, they don’t shower you with ads.
Want a large file to experiment with downloading? speed test has a variety through an FTP server: ftp://speedtest.tele2.net/ . On linux I use a command like this:
$ curl ftp://speedtest.tele2.net/50MB.zip > /dev/null
% Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed
100 50.0M 100 50.0M 0 0 6099k 0 0:00:08 0:00:08 --:--:-- 11.3M |
For faster speeds you should download the larger files.
I have also just discovered this site with large files you can download with HTTP:
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/download
For instance here is a direct link to their 100MB file which is nice to work with: http://ipv4.download.thinkbroadband.com/100MB.zip