hi, i saw on the news the BBC broadband test, and ive been having some speed problems lately so i thought id check it out... i am SUPPOSED to have a connection up to 8mb from Tiscali Broadband... In my house my router is connected to: 1 Desktop PC (this ..) which is wired to the router via ethernet.. 2 Laptop PC's which are both wireless and 2 PS3's again both wireless.. ok so .. i did the broadband test on the bbc's site.. and it came back saying youre connection is .. 0.2mb !!!!!!!!!! .. i was shocked.. i know its been a bit slow lately but i wasnt expecting that. the 2 ps3's are fine online, never have any problem even whenthe 3 pcs are online aswell. im not sure about the laptops cos they're my parents, but i dont ever hear any complaints about speed. but my desktop that im on now is slow as hell.. some times its fine.. but most of the time it takes AGES to download stuff or i have to close loads of stuff to get it to be just a reasonable speed. anyone got any clue why my internet connection would be soooo low? do u think its a problem with the computer or the connection? thanks in advance for anyhelp/ advice.

"...up to 8mb..." is just that. You rarely if ever get the max speed. The max speed depends primarily on the max speed you can obtain at that particular time from a particular site, if everything else is okay. When you do a speed test, the result you get varies considerably depending on where you are in relation to where the server that has the test is, which test you use, internet traffic at the time, etc. - use the same location where you get a higher result, same test, over a short time period - otherwise the variation in results is invalid. If you do a second test at the same site right away or within a very short time, the second test is often falsely faster because some of the data it loads is still in your ram or in your virtual memory cache on your hard drive. Do something else, then go back in a few minutes, to take data loaded by the test still on your computer out of the equation. Try - ask others that you know use the same ISP whether they are having problems, at the same time you are having problems - sometimes they are, and there is nothing you can do until the ISP fixes the problem. The ISP will often NOT admit they have a problem, unless they are doing maintenance and the ISP person you talk to knows about that. - resetting or rebooting your high speed modem or router/modem combo. It will reset itself if the power to it has been turned off then turned back on, but it often doesn't give you an indication you have a poor connection to the internet if the connection was previously good and the device was on when the connection then became poor. If it has a switch, switch the device off. If it doesn't, unplug the DC cord that comes from the power adpter at the device, or unplug the power adapter, or unplug the direct to AC power cord , or switch off whatever the power adapter or direct to AC power cord is connected to. Wait a few seconds. Restore power to the device. Wait until any leds on the front of it indicate you have a good connection to the internet (see the manual for the device if you don't know what to look for) - usually that will be fine within a minute or two. Try your computer on the internet. - check the connections of the cable that connects you to the internet, or try a different one to where you are connecting it. That's easy enough if you connect via a coax cable. Going by your max speed, you probably don't have a DSL or ADSL connection, but if you do, the shorter your cheap flat phone cable to where you connect it the better. If you must use such a cable a lot longer than 6 feet or 2 meters or so, you are better off rigging up a cable from the wiring of the nearest wall source using a cable with twisted wire pairs in it, the same as commonly used inside the walls for phone connections, connecting that to a small adapter you can plug a standard phone cable connector into, and using a short flat cable between that and your modem or router/modem combo. If you have a phone connected to the same phone line that connects you to the internet, when your speed is testing slow, pick up the phone and listen for a while for obvious staticy noises on the line - you won't necessarily hear something, but if you do that's a sure sign that is what is causing your problem. If you hear noise - you could try unplugging other things on the same phone line to see if the problem goes away but that's usually not the problem - if it doesn't go away within a day or so, call your phone company and have them check your phone line connections. .... As far as you getting different speeds at the same web site for exactly the same test on different computers, all sorts of things could be wrong. You could try a TCP settings optimization program, such as TCPOptimizer, and set it to optimal settings, but that can only help a little (default Windows TCP settings are not ideal). If you post on the networking forum on this site instead of this one you may get more useful suggestions about what to look for or tweak on your system.

First things first, check the actual speed that the Router states the line is enabled for, this is in the Router's configuration. Mine with Tiscali UK is 8064kbps, now there is a 50:1 contention ratio and in my road to my knowledge there are at least 20 households broadband enabled. With http://www.speedtest.net it states 5650kbps, therefore try different tests with different sites for comparision. As an aside I live in a Town Centre hence the good speeds.

Note that when you are checking speeds, there are a couple of ways to indicate the speed: 0.2MB/s = approximately 2Mb/s

Try the link below. I have found that somehow the speed registered will be close to the rated speed of your connection. Useful to see if there is something wrong with your ISP. As others have stated, normally you will not get near the thryput you pay for. I is the addiage of the weakest link, in this case, the slowest link. http://www.pcpitstop.com/internet/

kryters I also tried the BBC Test I use a variety of Online Speedtests eg Speedtest.net, Pcpitstop.com, Numion.com etc These always give me between 4.5 and 5.5 Mbs Repeated Tests using the BBC Speedtest give me 3.1 to 3.3 Mbps Therefore I question the accuracy of the BBC Test Lesley

Lesley The speed is dependent on where the trace is routed. PC Pitstop for instance has four servers you can connect to. The speed will vary for each.