WEBSITE OF THE DAY - bandwidthplace.com

A sure-fire way to find out if your ISP’s claims about your connection speed are fact or fiction

20 September 2006 6:03 GMT / By Ian Hughes

Today’s website of the day is bandwidthplace.com/speedtest a sure-fire way to find out if your ISP’s claims about your connection speed are fact or fiction.

High-speed broadband connections are plummeting as far as cost goes, but are we having to compromise on speed too? An ISP might claim to offer 8 Meg download speeds, but if you’re sharing your connection with lots of people, that speed will plummet too – it’s what they call the contention ratio. If your provider has a contention ratio of 50:1, you could be sharing the equipment at the local BT exchange with up to 50 people at any one time. This means your actual connection speed will differ, sometimes dramatically, to the advertised speed.

This site runs a series of simple tests and will then let you know what your current speed is and also how it compares to national and international averages.

So if speed is all you live for, this is one tool you’ll certainly find useful.

www.bandwidthplace.com/speedtest

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Software, Online, WebsiteOfTheDay, Broadband