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Fast.com: Netflix internet connection speed test

• mrbill 10y ago
  Interesting. Even over multiple tests, I get almost exactly 1/3rd the download bandwidth speed to NetFlix that I do testing with speedtest.net.
  • drewg123 10y ago
    This tool exists exactly to highlight cases like yours. Sounds like your ISP has over-subscribed its connection to whatever IX is serving this to you, and that they're hosting speedtest locally in their network.
    • tracker1 10y ago
      More likely the speedtest sites have a much higher QOS definition, and are unthrottled, while netflix is explicitly throttled.
      • drewg123 10y ago
        It is probably both. I'm a Comcast customer. When I run speedtest & tcpdump the traffic, i'm nearly always talking to something .comcast.net, and it is just a few hops away via traceroute. When I use fast.com, I'm talking to various ix.nflxvideo.net hosts, all at least 4 to 6 hops farther away. The amusing thing is that I get better speed with the fast,com (140Mb/s) than with speedtest (133Mb/s).
• iLoch 10y ago
  Description would be nice for anyone on mobile who doesn't want to needlessly waste bandwidth.
  • protomyth 10y ago
    Yep, changed the title, sorry.
• pazra 10y ago
  This is nice and great that it loads quickly with no bloat or distractions. Not sure about the domain name though, as it's not immediately obvious what the site is for.
• danvoell 10y ago
  I feel like you could do more with this domain. Cool little tool though.
  • vthallam 10y ago
    Exactly! This is a really cool domain. Would be great for a delivery/mailing service :)
• exhilaration 10y ago
  This is from Netflix, it downloads Netflix content and reports the speed back. This is important because unlike your average Internet speed test (which ISPs take pains to optimize), there's a very real possibility that your ISP is happy to let your Netflix experience suffer - assuming they don't throttle it outright - as previously mentioned on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7183682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7183682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7853603 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7853603
  • Vraxx 10y ago
    I've had a tech who came to deal with a reported issue I was having tell me to test on a specific Time Warner Cable speed test. He then got upset/flustered when I used a different speed test to demonstrate that the issue was still present. I had to explain that I use the internet connection I was paying for to do things on domains that aren't owned and optimized by TWC.
    • jmtulloss 10y ago
      To give the tech the benefit of the doubt, it's possible that he just isn't certain he can trust other speed tests. They may point to issues beyond his control.
      • Vraxx 10y ago
        Yeah, it's tough to find the line of when to stop giving the benefit of the doubt though. I was using speedtest.net at the time, which is pretty well known and widely used. I had also had multiple visits recently regarding the issue that still had not been resolved, and so my impatience made the decision for me.
        • ckuehl 10y ago
          For what it's worth, ISPs are definitely shaping traffic to try to game results on public speed tests. I had an issue with Comcast last year where I would have large latency spikes for ~2 hours every night, and speedtest.net always remained at normal latency: https://i.fluffy.cc/kNCxLMbkF2wx7NHFJxbzcgX35Bsb5nvl.png https://i.fluffy.cc/kNCxLMbkF2wx7NHFJxbzcgX35Bsb5nvl.png I couldn't find any non-speedtest sites where my latency was less than 100ms, but Comcast's own speed test, several other public speed tests, speedtest.net, and even ookla.com (the company behind speedtest.net) were perfect (the ~20ms you see on the graph).
• gdulli 10y ago
  When I used to be a Netflix customer it was more the variability of my connection that was an issue and not its "speed" at a given optimal time. Usually I could begin a stream without problems. But often while streaming (often enough for me to realize streaming was a bad experience) the bitrate dynamically dropped way down to a terrible quality in response to what I imagine were poor network conditions. Netflix no doubt sees this dynamic quality adjustment as a feature, and preferable to buffering, but I chose an HD stream and I'd rather even see an SD quality video that I could be sure would stay that quality than switching between HD and very low bitrate, fuzzy, artifacty video. I don't blame Netflix for the quality of my connection, but streaming is just not as reliable as cable and it's not one of those Moore's Law type things where throwing more processing power or memory fixes the network issues.
  • Aelinsaar 10y ago
    More of an issue of needing to throw ISP execs into a pit so that the infrastructure can move into this century.
  • drewg123 10y ago
    This highlights the conflict of interest that cable ISPs have. If they provide you good internet service, by either allowing embedded Netflix (and Google, Amazon, etc) cache appliances into their network, or had add more downstream bandwidth, then you might have cut the cord. However, by giving you crappy internet service, they have retained you as a cable customer. Lovely.
    • gdulli 10y ago
      My service is fine for all other use cases but remote HD video, with its need for constant high bandwidth, is always going to be a fundamentally more difficult problem to solve than local digital video, traditional cable-delivered video, or regular downloads that can tolerate variance in transfer rate. It doesn't feel like it takes a conspiracy to explain that. When cable companies wanted to be our email or news/content portals I never had any issues using competing services on cable internet. I was never going to cut the cord. I like having many channels and the serendipity of a wide variety of programming that's on "now" to choose from. There are shows/movies I never would have chosen myself but I stumbled onto them because they were "on" and they became favorites. With a DVR I can also time-shift so I'm not tied to watching something on the broadcasters' schedule when I don't want to. I tried Netflix to augment this with what I thought would be a big influx of other programming but it wasn't only the streaming experience I didn't like, I was unimpressed with the selection of the Netflix library. If they do another season of Arrested Development, I'll subscribe for a few months to support that.
• _jomo 10y ago
  I also like speedof.me which tests latency, download, and upload but purely using HTML5/JS (unlike speedtest.net with it's Flash app)
  • jlgaddis 10y ago
    There's also a command-line "client" for speedtest.net, speedtest-cli [0], that just uses Python. I use it because I don't have Flash installed anywhere. It's handy for remote or headless machines too. [0]: https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli
    • nathancahill 10y ago
      Nice, thanks fam.
    • virtuallynathan 10y ago
      That client is not at all reliable above about 30Mbps, and the dev just closes all issues about it.
  • fred256 10y ago
    beta.speedtest.net no longer requires flash
• vessenes 10y ago
  I like the idea of getting ISPs into internal conflict: the folks responsible for making sure that speed checks like speedtest.net run quickly will be fighting the folks responsible for throttling Netflix. But, I think the throttling folks will ultimately win. In that case, I guess Netflix is laying out a good case for consumers to complain, so it's win-win.
• dangson 10y ago
  Not surprisingly since this is downloading Netflix content, it doesn't work when I'm connected through Private Internet Access VPN.
• parfe 10y ago
  730mpbs to fast.com while only 700mbps on speedtest.net (with 853mbps up).
  • smcl 10y ago
    Strange I too have a higher upload than download speed on speedtest.net (usually 75 down, 80 up - or so)
  • nicky0 10y ago
    What kind of connection gives you 730Mbps?
    • kinai 10y ago
      Gigabit becomes quite common in Europe. I get 910
      • nicky0 10y ago
        Wow. Is this a home consumer connection? What is the cost?
        • kinai 10y ago
          40 Euro. 100mbit 9,90, 600mbit 19,90. Eastern Europe for the win ;)
          • photonios 10y ago
            Bit on the high side, I pay a fourth of that here :)
            • nicky0 10y ago
              10 euro/month for 1 gigabit?
        • photonios 10y ago
• zodPod 10y ago
  I'd bet this is a move to make the ISPs that are throttling them look bad. If people start to use it to check their speeds and they are downloading Netflix content from Netflix and the ISP is throttling, it will look slower than it is and more people will likely complain. I like it. It's suitably evil!
  • Arcsech 10y ago
    Why is it evil? And if the ISP is throttling Netflix, it doesn't "look slower than it is", it just accurately reports the throttled speed. I mean sure, it's definitely to make ISPs look bad... if they're throttling Netflix connections or otherwise providing slower than advertised speeds. Which doesn't sound terribly evil to me.
    • legohead 10y ago
      Is it evil if it's illegal? [1] [1] https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us/articles/204231404-Open-Internet https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us/articles/2042314...
      • Vraxx 10y ago
        OP looks like he's calling Netflix's actions evil, and the post you're replying to is questioning that. I think everybody in this comment chain agrees that throttling based on domain is illegal and immoral for the ISP to do.
        • Arcsech 10y ago
          Yes, I was saying that making ISPs look bad, under those circumstances, doesn't seem evil. I can see how what I wrote could be misinterpreted though.
        • zodPod 10y ago
          For the record, I meant evil in a fun way. Like a cartoon villain. Suitably meaning that it was a good equal response to what they've been dealing with.
• jedberg 10y ago
  Oh man this is awesome. I can't wait till people start calling thier ISPs claiming they aren't getting the speeds they pay for, only for the poor agent to have to explain how peering agreements work.
  • Shivetya 10y ago
    Can't the ISPs just prioritize traffic to FAST to mitigate concerns?
    • pacofvf 10y ago
      According to Fast.com FAQ, they use the same "servers" that Netflix uses for streaming: > To calculate this estimate, Fast.com performs a series of downloads from Netflix servers. So ISPs want a good Fast.com score then they should prioritize traffic to NETFLIX. A very smart move by Netflix if you ask me.
      • gist 10y ago
        Couldn't that just be gamed by allowing fast speeds for the initial connection of X size or Y Time and then dropping down to less once they guesstimate the test is over?
        • Vraxx 10y ago
          That proposed plan could probably be reverse gamed by Netflix by buffering streamed content with multiple separate connections. Or by including a way to check the speed mid stream. Or by allowing extended tests on fast.com. This is a classic cat and mouse game.
      • casicone 10y ago
        That's nice, but isn't it still a violation of net neutrality?
        • allemagne 10y ago
• vadym909 10y ago
  Wow- this is awesome. I hated speedtest.net
  • passivepinetree 10y ago
    Would you mind elaborating on that? What are the issues with speedtest.net?
    • TruthSHIFT 10y ago
      Fast.com improves upon speedtest.net in the following says: * Page loads quickly * No Ads * No ISP partnerships
    • Amorymeltzer 10y ago
      Not OP but it's a large, hideous site with a lot of junk I don't care about. The faux-futuristic map with an arc to a pyramid? The colored odometer with a variable scale? Creating an account? Ads? As others have mentioned, ISPs can game the speedtest.net results, whereas with fast.com users will get exactly what they want: a single number that shows how fast they get Netflix. No frills, nothing else. Some of the advanced features of speedtest.net are useful for some advanced users, but it's a weird de-facto standard that caters to the tiny minority.
      • passivepinetree 10y ago
        Those are pretty good points. The big appeal for fast.com for me is that it measures the connection to Netflix's services and ISP's can't game it, but I still wish it gave more information than a single number.
    • soared 10y ago
      All I want from speedtest.net is two numbers: up and down. That is everything fast.com gives me, and nothing more. I don't care about the fancy/weird laptop battleship image, ads, etc. Also the "powered by ookla" is the weirdest branding I've ever seen. Not only does it bother me, but makes me trust the site way less. I didn't know what ookla was until I googled it just now. Redesign/rebrand speedtest.net so it matches ookla. Right now speedtest looks like a scam, ookla looks official.
• jefurii 10y ago
  Yawn, only checks download speed.
  • bsg75 10y ago
    From a consumer standpoint, that is the more interesting metric. For those of us who frequent HN, it is only half the picture.
    • rconti 10y ago
      Or like 9/10 the picture
  • bluedino 10y ago
    Upload is useful in case you're on a connection with severely worse upload than download. Say 10mb down and 384k up. How much uplink do you need to send enough ACK packets for a HD stream?
    • jefurii 10y ago
      You're right, uplink is pretty much useless if you're only consuming Netflix. I guess I'm still infected by 90s-era ideals about the internet being a place for the free exchange of information, where any tech-savvy person should be able to run their own server, etc, etc. I'd at least like to be able to upload photos of my son without my connection slowing to a crawl.
• smaili 10y ago
  Not to sound ignorant, but what's the point? Why would Netflix go through the trouble of acquiring what I suspect to be a fairly expensive domain just to show how fast one's internet speed is?
  • dragonwriter 10y ago
    > Why would Netflix go through the trouble of acquiring what I suspect to be a fairly expensive domain just to show how fast one's internet speed is? Fast.com shows how fast your connection to Netflix's servers are. Given how popular a use of the internet Netflix is (and that using it for Netflix is one of the reasons people pay for particular internet speeds), and given that many ISPs provide connections which, for various reasons, provide less speed on connections to Netflix than users might expect from advertised speeds, this seems to be useful both to consumers and Netflix. The motives clearly are not altruistic, even though there is consumer utility. Probaby going to annoy the heck out of a lot of ISPs...
  • random28345 10y ago
    > I find it hard to believe their motives are purely altruistic. Absolutely selfish. Their goal is to make boatloads of money by pressuring ISPs to allow their customers to access Netflix at the speeds the customers paid for. Once customers can use their high speed internet, many will choose to be Netflix customers.
    • stormbrew 10y ago
      It's interesting to describe something that gets people what they pay for as selfish on the part of a third party. I mean, yes, there is something in it for netflix, but it arises from making things better for their users. I'd describe that as win-win, personally. Now, killing performance on a service your users want so you can force an inferior product on them? That's selfish.
      • random28345 10y ago
        > It's interesting to describe something that gets people what they pay for as selfish on the part of a third party. It's selfish because it is done with the goal of increasing Netflix's revenue. Now, in this case selfish doesn't mean evil. To the contrary, Netflix's success will mean happier people, more satisfied customers. Much in the same way auto manufacturers make safer cars for higher profits, or surgeons can make a comfortable living saving lives. Netflix is simply trying to make a buck, and if some people get helped in the process, that's just collateral benefit.
• janpieterz 10y ago
  Odd, on a dedicated 500 mbit line I've now gotten 6 different results, ranging from 350-500. Speedtest.net indicates a stable 500+ mbit line, downloads from very fast servers always max it out at 500 as well. Besides stabilizing it a bit, getting the upload on there would be amazing, it's certainly a lot nicer for the eye than speedtest.net.
  • nathancahill 10y ago
    That's because ISPs game SpeedTest.net and give you your full bandwidth for the test data. So the 350-500 is more accurate to your actual milage (at least for Netflix's peering agreements).
    • janpieterz 10y ago
      That would be totally valid, except I get a perfectly fine and stable 500 down from, for example, Microsoft's MSDN, depending on the size of the ISO showing this straight for a couple of minutes..
      • dragontamer 10y ago
        The internet is a network. Different paths will have different amounts of bandwidth and latency, especially at different times when some parts of the network are heavily loaded. In certain cases (ie: transatlantic cables), there is only one quick path between US and Europe. If that cable is heavily loaded, then your bandwidth when talking to a European server will be slower.
      • nathancahill 10y ago
        Right, this tool only tests your ISP's speed for Netflix content, which most tend to throttle. For the majority of people, Netflix is the only way that the saturate their bandwidth, so this tool is more relevant to them than to people downloading ISOs. I generally speed test by wget'ing a large ISO because those numbers are more relevant to me.
      • rhino369 10y ago
• kcorbitt 10y ago
  Really nice and easy to use -- the test starts way quicker than speedtest.net. However, am I missing something, or does this only test downloading? I guess that makes sense for Netflix's use case, but I'm usually at least as interested in knowing my upload speed, because with typical asymmetric connections that can be a bigger bottleneck for video calls and content-production workloads.
  • nathancahill 10y ago
    Well, the nice thing about this is that they test with real-world streaming data that ISPs can't game like the do on SpeedTest.net. What's the upload equivalent of that? Flickr uploads?
    • mrgoldenbrown 10y ago
      I would say video chat is the biggest upload bottleneck that I care about.
      • nathancahill 10y ago
        Truth. Maybe we'll see Google Hangouts or Skype/Microsoft build their own version of this for upload speeds.
    • cannam 10y ago
      All very offtopic, but uploads on the Flickr site usually timeout on my home broadband these days. I fear they've been tweaking their servers for classier users than I am.
  • Amorymeltzer 10y ago
    >What is Fast.com measuring? >Fast.com estimates your current download speed. You will generally be able to get this speed from leading internet services, which use globally distributed servers. >Why does Fast.com only report on download speed? >Download speed is most relevant for people who are consuming content on the Internet, and we want fast.com to be very simple and fast.
• hacks412 10y ago
  Is this a way for them to optimize who they deliver faster streaming services to?
• pgrote 10y ago
  The amount of data netflix will collect from this is exciting! I can only imagine the stories it will tell once hundreds of thousands of people use it. It would be fantastic to see how the agreements between ISPs and netflix affect the data transfer rates.
  • nicky0 10y ago
    Surely they already have tons of speed data from millions of video streams they serve.
    • pgrote 10y ago
      Absolutely and they have provided great metrics on the streaming performance of their customers. This opens it up for folks who are not netflix customers, which hopefully gathers more data .
• bdwalter 10y ago
  Seems like this is really about training their consumers to define the quality of their internet by their reachability to the Netflix CDN nodes.. Smart move on Netflix's part.
  • ihsw 10y ago
    To many, Netflix reachability is their #1 concern.
    • themartorana 10y ago
      I'm a software engineer with all sorts of shit hooked up to my 100mbps (thanks Comcast for no gigabit in your worldwide headquarters city of Philadelphia) downlink (still 10mbps up because you know...) and Netflix is absolutely my #1 concern at home.
      • hashmymustache 10y ago
        Yup. Same for me with the Playstation Vue. Wondering if they will throttle that since it's a direct competitor to their cable offerings.
      • rhino369 10y ago
        Eh, netflix maxes out content at a fraction your comcast speed. Doesn't really matter if Netflix is going 50mbps or 100mpbs. Making netflix work is important, but I'd be pretty disappointed if my ISP was giving me 20mpbs, even though Netflix would never need that much.
        • themartorana 10y ago
          Is that true even for 4K content (of which there is little, but still)?
          • ihsw 10y ago
            Netflix recommends 25Mbit or higher for 4k content (Ultra HD). https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306 https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306
• finnn 10y ago
  For those hatin on speedtest.net and wanting upload, http://speedtest.dslreports.com/ http://speedtest.dslreports.com/ and https://speedof.me/ https://speedof.me/ have booth been around for a while. The reason for fast.com is that it tests download speed from netflix. ISPs can't prioritize it without prioritizing netflix as well.
  • nugget 10y ago
    Couldn't an ISP prioritize burst traffic but throttle streaming after X minutes?
    • deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    • wnevets 10y ago
      sounds like we need a test that last as long as a movie.
      • jontas 10y ago
        Perhaps just a (optional) "download speed" display in the corner while watching a movie..
        • karlshea 10y ago
          But HD is only 5Mbps and 4K is 25Mbps, so you wouldn't necessarily be testing the full bandwidth of your connection.
        • eli 10y ago
          Netflix has an unofficial test movie that shows streaming speed: http://www.wired.com/2014/06/netflix-streaming-test/ http://www.wired.com/2014/06/netflix-streaming-test/
          • tajen 10y ago
            Or Netflix has a global index on the streaming speed for all movies, per ISP: https://ispspeedindex.netflix.com https://ispspeedindex.netflix.com
• kilroy123 10y ago
  Why doesn't netflix just try to by-pass ISPs by rolling out their own service? Big ISPs are starting to cap data, to stop/slow-down netflix. They should just put out their own high speed service like Google.
  • JustSomeNobody 10y ago
    If only it were that easy...
    • kilroy123 10y ago
      They have the money. Could end up being very profitable down the line.
      • fred256 10y ago
        Google is doing this with Google Fiber and it's not exactly making a ton of progress :(
  • rhino369 10y ago
    >Why doesn't netflix just try to by-pass ISPs by rolling out their own service? Because it's hugely expensive. Fios cost Verizon ~30 billion dollars and it only covers a fraction of the USA and large parts of it are already outdated.
• lemiffe 10y ago
  Only downlink? For me uplink is more important, and I suspect for others as well (gaming/streaming).
  • smhenderson 10y ago
    The amount of data you upload to NetFlix to watch a stream is negligible so really doesn't apply in this case. This site is strictly to see if your ISP is purposely slowing down your streaming specifically from NetFlix.
• vonklaus 10y ago
  My internet speed (according to fast.com) is 0. Adblock & uBlock off on the site & fast.com uses https. Not sure why it wouldn't be working, no VPN in middle. Anyone else having issues? edit: Speedtest.net was ~38mbps down. Is a netflix subscription nec. for this?
  • lliamander 10y ago
    >Is a netflix subscription nec. for this? Don't think so. I can reach it from a computer that has never logged into my Netflix account. Can you reach the main netflix website?
    • vonklaus 10y ago
      I can reach netflix.com. I can now reach fast.com. I am skeptical that the results are correct, i pay for 50mbps, typcally receive ~40ish, and fast.com says avg of 56 edit: can't reach servers again. no idea why, currently behind vpn now. No disruptions anywhere. I wonder if the site is just under heavy load and failing but not returning proper status codes.
• danr4 10y ago
  This is good but my god what a waste of a domain name :(
  • TillE 10y ago
    Quick, name three very popular websites that use generic, short domain names. See? It's actually not very important/valuable.
    • asb 10y ago
      ask.com, weather.com, dictionary.com - but point taken :)
  • aquilaFiera 10y ago
    You should go look at the shit that you used to be on Fast.com before Netflix bought it: https://web.archive.org/web/20130726075933/http://www.fast.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20130726075933/http://www.fast.c...
    • zodPod 10y ago
      It used to be owned by Windstream? What a fucking joke. They are the worst DSL provider that I've ever used.
• CyrusL 10y ago
  Cool. I just redirected http://slow.com http://slow.com to https://fast.com https://fast.com .
  • Flammy 10y ago
    Heh. If you don't have plans for it they'd probably be willing to buy it from you.
  • albasha 10y ago
    I am not sure they would appreciate that as at any moment when there will be traffic on slow.com you may change it to something else.
    • beachstartup 10y ago
      that's kind of how dns works, yeah.
      • chinathrow 10y ago
        It's a 301 directly to https://fast.com https://fast.com. No DNS involved.
        • beachstartup 10y ago
          last time i checked fast.com and slow.com are ... domain names.
          • kylec 10y ago
            They are, but DNS is not used to redirect slow.com to fast.com. They both resolve to different IP addresses. It's only when the browser requests "http://slow.com" http://slow.com" from the slow.com server that it is told to redirect to https://fast.com/ https://fast.com/. This is an HTTP redirect, and has nothing to do with DNS.
            • 10y ago
• IgorPartola 10y ago
  Yup, and it nicely confirms that (a) my Charter connection is in fact 65 Mbps down and (b) I can't get faster internet where I live. Oh, and 5 Mbps up is just ridiculous. That's what I get with my business plan. Back up a TB of data to the cloud? Yeah, that'll take weeks.
  • PuffinBlue 10y ago
    > Back up a TB of data to the cloud? Yeah, that'll take weeks. I feel your pain. 12Mbps here but it seems that Crashplan tops out at 4.5Mbps anyway here in the UK so sending 2.3TB up there took over 2 months.
    • IgorPartola 10y ago
      Ya. And at my 5 Mbps up, I'd have to throttle it myself, otherwise my internet connection here would be useless for the weeks it takes to upload.
• loganabbott 10y ago
  I prefer the speed test here: https://www.voipreview.org/speedtest https://www.voipreview.org/speedtest No flash or silverlight required and a lot more details
  • mjs7231 10y ago
    The secret here is that this is measuring speed to Netflix, which on many ISPs is throttled well beyond what other speed tests will report. I'm in the Boston area and getting 100Mbps on fast.com, but getting 250Mbps on speedtest.net. Fast.com is even encouraging you to compare their result with speedtest.net. It's a pretty smart tactic. If you're paying for 150Mbps, but being throttled to 100Mbps on Netflix and your ISP doesn't tell you, you're not really getting what you pay for.
• techaddict009 10y ago
  No upload speed results?
  • nodesocket 10y ago
    Upload does not matter when streaming video.
• bodytaing 10y ago
  This is an awesome alternative to the other speed tests because it's very minimal and has a clutter-free UI.
• wil421 10y ago
  On my laptop: First test: 55mbps Second: 35mbps Third: 22mbps Fourth: 22mbps Speedtest: right at 36mbps every time. It seems to be more stable on my cellphone.
• nlawalker 10y ago
  What I'd really love to see is this concept provided as a service by all of the big streaming/gaming/large-content-blob providers and aggregated into a single page. I have absolutely no reason to believe that every well-known "speed test" app/site/utility out there isn't being gamed by my ISP. A speed test that showed me my actual streaming bandwidth from Netflix, actual download speed of an XX MB file from Steam, actual upload bandwidth to some photo-sharing service, and actual latency to XBox Live or some well-trafficked gaming service would be awesome.
  • btym 10y ago
    I'm not sure this would need to be managed by any of those companies though, I think everything you listed could be tested in a browser by a 3rd party. May require authorization to those services though.
  • nitrogen 10y ago
    I have absolutely no reason to believe that every well-known "speed test" app/site/utility out there isn't being gamed by my ISP. Guess who runs the nearest speedtest.net server: Comcast.
    • virtuallynathan 10y ago
      There is good reasons for this, it can help a ton in figuring out where exactly the issue is. If the speedtest server is off-net, you have no idea where the problem lies. Transit provider? Peering? End network? my wifi? Last mile?
      • CaptSpify 10y ago
        There may be some good reasons for this, but for even the best companies, it's shady. And comcast is far from one the best companies. Instead, they should create a site that is clearly comcast branded and shows the results of each step.
        • Sephr 10y ago
• tigeba 10y ago
  Just for a reference point, I'm getting about 350 on Google Fiber in Kansas City.
  • ericabiz 10y ago
    Interesting. I'm on AT&T Gigabit (Google Fiber competitor here in Austin) and I got 660Mbit on fast.com (Windows 10 desktop directly connected via Ethernet.) A MacBook Pro laptop with Wifi (802.11ac) connected a few rooms away shows 260Mbit. Are you wireless or wired? If wired, that seems quite low.
    • b3b0p 10y ago
      Thanks for reporting. I'll test when I get home, but I'm also in Austin and have Gigapower. I was afraid that it would almost embarrassingly low, but your results gave me hope. I'm curious what the Google Fiber and Grande users here get.
      • 1000hz 10y ago
        I'm on Grande's gigabit and am getting ~180-200 Mbps over 802.11ac a couple rooms away. Sadly I don't have an ethernet dongle for my macbook pro to test a wired connection.
    • crazydoggers 10y ago
      I'm also on AT&T Gigabit in Austin, wired, reporting only 490Mbps on fast.com. However, I can download from Steam at 950Mbps, and report similar speeds on other tests.
  • dsl 10y ago
    Humblebrag.
  • johne20 10y ago
    I get 450Mbps on centurylink gigabit fiber in Seattle. I get 900+ Mbps via speedtest.net. I am hardwired direct to modem on gigabit LAN. I am happy to have this problem, but I have noticed most speedtests (depending on endpoint) don't report gigabit connection speeds well. I am not sure if there is an upper limit to this Netflix test or if I am actually getting throttled.
• stanleydrew 10y ago
  I'm pretty sure Google is about to release a speed test tool embedded directly into its SRP for speed-test-related queries. Similarly to how they eliminated the need for third-party IP address checking tools by returning your actual IP address when you search for "what's my ip address".
  • dpcx 10y ago
    They didn't eliminate the need. To get my IP from there programmatically, I'd have to parse the DOM. Or, I can "curl https://i.ngx.cc" https://i.ngx.cc", and have it immediately available.
    • nitrogen 10y ago
      Just make sure your scripts won't fail if the site claims your IP is "$(rm -rf /)".
  • LeoPanthera 10y ago
    As much as I am loathed to promote Bing, Microsoft already has one if you type speed test into Bing.
• erickhill 10y ago
  Thanks Xfinity. For my home service fast.com should redirect to slow.com. 5.2 Mbps (it's sold at 50 Mbps with asterisks everywhere).
  • nodesocket 10y ago
    When I get home I'll check my Xfinity connection (SF). When I run speedtest I get over 150Mbps down.
    • erickhill 10y ago
      My office also uses Comcast/xfinity for business. Incredibly, in 2016, we had to get a $40 device that reboots the modem and router every single day once a day when the office is closed. This is the solution we were given to maintain decent speeds with their hardware. And it works. But it's sad.
  • gtremper 10y ago
    slow.com redirects to fast.com. That would cause a redirect loop. :D https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11723650 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11723650
• caludio 10y ago
  Mhh, I get consistently (much) lower Mbps with Firefox than with Chrome. Is it how it's supposed to be? Is it my network maybe?
• nodesocket 10y ago
  While cool, I can't believe they bought and use fast.com for something so simple. Fast.com has to be worth some coin. Anybody have any idea what that domain is worth?
  • trothamel 10y ago
    It strikes me that if this is part of a strategy to get peering agreements with ISPs, they could save a lot of money in the long run. EDIT: Added the word peering.
• philjackson 10y ago
  SPEED MEGATHREAD, post your speed/location/ISP below here: 44Mbps / London, uk / BT
  • PuffinBlue 10y ago
    200Mbps / Stonehenge, UK / Virgin Media Exactly as advertised though having the cabinet on my front garden does mean I can get about 220Mbps in the quietest periods so I"m fairly lucky. Unfortunately, a 12Mbps throttled upload is not a great experience, especially when Virgin had said it would be at least 200/20.
  • dmix 10y ago
    Toronto, Ontario, Canada via Teksavvy 86mbps (Fast.com) 99mbps (Speedtest.net) The ~10mbps difference holds through after multiple tests. Maybe Rogers doesn't like Netflix?
  • jstsch 10y ago
    160Mbps / The Hague, NL / Ziggo
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  • 1_player 10y ago
    54 Mbps / London / Virgin Media Same w/ Speedtest (~50Mb / ~2Mb, 16ms)
• jasallen 10y ago
  Wow, "fast.com" is one helluva valuable piece of DNS real estate Netflix is throwing at this.
• cletusw 10y ago
  Dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11723157 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11723157 ?
  • dang 10y ago
    Since that one was posted later and doesn't add much info, I think we'll treat it as a dupe of this.
• myrandomcomment 10y ago
  On AT&T U-verse in Palo Alto area. $72 p/month for 24mb now with even more data caps. Fast.com ~23mb Speedtest.net ~38mb Hum, I wonder which is right and which is the ISP screwing with traffic?
  • squiguy7 10y ago
    I frustratingly pay the same amount while other ISPs in southern California offer 300 Mb/s for the same price. My apartment isn't wired for anything else though which is a bummer.
  • thomaskcr 10y ago
    Speedtest is a more accurate measure of what you're actually paying for - which is a connection to the ATT network. The speedtest server is right on their network most likely. Fast.com is a more functional test, specifically measuring how fast a connection on the ATT network in that area to the Netflix servers is. You're not paying ATT for a 24mb/s connection to every server on the entire internet because that would be impossible (how could your ISP promise you that much bandwidth across a transatlantic cable, or over a satellite link, or to a server connected via dialup). More generally, you're testing the strength of their peering and the route available for a specific purpose (watching Netflix). They aren't measuring the same thing at all. It would be like buying a 100mb/s router, plugging it into 20mb/s internet and then complaining that your router is broken because you can't download at 100mb/s. Your router will still show your ability to contact other computers in your house as 100mb/s (analogous to speedtest), but reaching computers outside your network (analogous to fast) is limited by the speed of your connection to the next larger network.
    • myrandomcomment 10y ago
      Speedtest.net provides many different servers, most of which are not on the AT&T network. The IP is not in the AT&T space and the AS path leaves AT&Ts network. In the end until someone can provide a dump of what is in the routers settings it is all a guessing game.
• smhenderson 10y ago
  OK, so I get 48 on fast.com and decided to use the link to compare on speedtest.net. There I get 101 down, 112 up. So while 48 seems very fast to me (I get 19 at work) it's a lot less than 101. Is Verizon throttling the connection or is NetFlix not giving me more the ~50? At what point is the cap on NetFlix's side and not the client connection?
  • ljf 10y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11723035 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11723035
  • bluedino 10y ago
    That's the whole point of the test - there is something between your provider and NetFlix that is limiting the connection
    • smhenderson 10y ago
      OK, I get that. My point is at what point is a connection fast enough that NF won't serve you any faster? I get 101 download on speedtest but I've never downloaded an ISO file and had it download any faster than 5-6. The service on the other end has a say in how fast my downloads are. So my question is there some theoretical cap on the NF side that says anything over (arbitrary-number> is fast enough so clients are capped at that. I'm on FIOS so I would not be surprised at all that VZ throttles the connection but on the other hand why cap it at ~50 and not at 5 or whatever? At 50 my connection is fast enough for me to watch full HD so it's not as if there turning me into a frustrated customer who decides cutting the cable is more hassle than it's worth...
      • bluedino 10y ago
        It'll do more than 50 - http://i.imgur.com/14v10xr.png http://i.imgur.com/14v10xr.png
• JustSomeNobody 10y ago
  How long until ISPs catch on and make sure fast.com is given a high priority? I don't see how this will accomplish anything for Netflix.
  • ljf 10y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11723035 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11723035
    • JustSomeNobody 10y ago
      So, you're saying ISPs can't prioritize the traffic from/to fast.com while throttling Netflix.com?
      • irishcoffee 10y ago
        Yes.
        • JustSomeNobody 10y ago
          I'm not convinced that is entirely true.
          • Rooster61 10y ago
            How could they? It is traffic going back and forth to the Netflix servers over https. The ISP can't tell WHAT is in that traffic, only where it is going. Thus, if they throttle Netflix, they throttle fast.com.
            • tjl 10y ago
              The simplest way would be to cheat and prioritize traffic for a few minutes and then throttle. That way, any speed test would come out fine but not actual shows.
            • 10y ago
• nodesocket 10y ago
  Interesting looking at Chrome developer tools, lots of magic and interesting payloads. The http header Via is interesting as it lists the AWS instance that served the request and region. i-654a87b8 (us-west-2)
• zmitri 10y ago
  Speed is halved using fast.com (140 down) vs speedtest (287 down) and I'm currently on Paxio in Oakland http://www.paxio.com http://www.paxio.com
  • AlgorithmicTime 10y ago
    I find it's about 10 Mbps slower on Cablevision.
• isomorphic 10y ago
  I have multiple WAN connections (multiple ISPs). This actually (correctly) reports the aggregate download speed! Obviously if they are "downloading multiple files," they aren't waiting for them to complete synchronously.
• known 10y ago
  I prefer http://linux.die.net/man/1/nload http://linux.die.net/man/1/nload
• callmeed 10y ago
  Most interesting is comparing it to the ISP speed tests: http://www.timewarnercable.com/en/support/speed-test.html http://www.timewarnercable.com/en/support/speed-test.html http://speedtest.charter.com/ http://speedtest.charter.com/ http://speedtest.xfinity.com/ http://speedtest.xfinity.com/ Fast.com is reporting about 1/2 the speed of these for me (2 seem to use the same Ookla speed test).
  • geocar 10y ago
    I'm getting the exact opposite: Fast.com/Speedtest.net are giving me numbers more than double the ISP speed tests you linked to: * http://imgur.com/a/tHK2U http://imgur.com/a/tHK2U
    • walrus01 10y ago
      It very much depends on where the local speedtest.net server is in relation to you in terms of network topology. If you're in a large city like SF or Seattle, your ISP might host a 1U box from ookla or directly peer with them at a major IX point less than 15 milliseconds away from you.
• manmal 10y ago
  I have absolutely terrible Netflix quality on my Samsung TV sometimes, but it shows 68MBit here. Makes me wonder whether the firmware is to blame..
  • mikeyouse 10y ago
    It definitely is.. I have a newish Samsung smart TV and the streaming quality was always garbage. I got an Apple TV and HBO and Netflix consistently stream at their highest bitrates via the same 150mbps internet connection.
• arnorhs 10y ago
  man, i'd love to see something like this for twitch streams. i feel like i have problems with twitch streams at specific times per day.
• victorNicollet 10y ago
  Very interesting, and it confirmed my suspicions that my ISP throttles me (or at least, tries to). I'm using Numericable from Paris and got 18Mbps to Netflix, 40Mbps to their comparison test. By going through an SSH tunnel (which makes a 230km detour through Roubaix), I get 39Mbps to both Netflix and control. I am rather surprised that the bandwith loss caused by the SSH tunnel is so small.
  • ngrilly 10y ago
    It's also possible that the route between Numericable and Netflix is insufficiently provisioned, unlike the route from Numericable to your SSH server to Netflix, which can have more capacity. What I mean is that's probably not an intentional throttling. Anyway, it's still a bad service. I have a similar issue sometimes with SFR...
  • tinalumfoil 10y ago
    Is there a place to share these results? I live in northern New Jersey with Verizon and get 55-58 for every speed test I can find. Netflix seems to be faster if anything, but I'm guessing that's due to the competition with Time Warner. https://i.imgur.com/LTcArQX.png https://i.imgur.com/LTcArQX.png
• developer545 10y ago
  It's surprising that people on HackerNews don't seem to understand the basics of how the Internet works.
  • el_duderino 10y ago
    There are people from all skill levels on this site.
  • dsl 10y ago
    No its not. Go interview developers sometime.
    • codemonkeymike 10y ago
      This is all too true. I had people in my 300 level Networking who even after that class didn't know how DNS servers worked (at a high level).
    • davidgerard 10y ago
      I have had that conversation with developers, where I literally was pointing them at the Wikipedia article and quoting bits back at them. Fun times.[citation needed]
    • _jomo 10y ago
      There are definitely less skilled developers around, but in my experience they also don't read (or even write) on HN.
  • albasha 10y ago
    I am not sure you two are idiots or just trolling. I am referring to the fact that the guy is trying to steal traffic.
    • fred256 10y ago
      Steal traffic from whom?
  • 10y ago
• ejcx 10y ago
  This is super awesome! It's a good speedtest that works on mobile, which I had not been able to find. Funny thing is I found this in the source. <!-- TODO: add code to remove this script for prod build --> <!--<script> document.write('<script src="http://' + (location.host || 'localhost').split(':')[0] + ':8081/livereload.js?snipver=1"></' + 'script>') </script>--> Not a big deal, but kind of funny.
• mofle 10y ago
  I made a command-line app for it: https://github.com/sindresorhus/fast-cli https://github.com/sindresorhus/fast-cli
• mrmondo 10y ago
  Doesn't work at all well for me here in Melbourne on 4g. Netflix: 7Mbit, speedtest.net: 39Mbit
• k4rtik 10y ago
  Is it inflating the results shown on Wi-Fi? I am on a MacBook Air Early 2014 and my current link speed is 144 Mbit/s according to Network Utility, but fast.com shows between 210 to 230 Mbps on each run. Speedtest.net results are consistent as before at ~38 Mpbs, which is what I would expect from the routers around me.
• ahamdy 10y ago
  The download speed is absolutely incorrect, I live in a 3rd world country and have a 2Mb connection I get max 200/kb max download rate, fast.com is showing a download speed of 1.2Mb I really wish it was true
• mrmondo 10y ago
  Just tried it on our 300/300Mbit link at work, lots of people working today so it'll be heavily under use but: - Netflix: 240Mbit/s - Speedtest: 293Mbit/s
• athenot 10y ago
  This is interesting. Test 1: on Comcast but connected to company's VPN: 48Mb/s Test 2: on Comcast but not on the VPN: 11Mb/s
  • fosco 10y ago
    Wonder if the formula just calculates based on the public IP that hits fast.com rather than the client to fast.com I have yet to see a speed test I believe, I am not getting 33mb down.
  • gruez 10y ago
    Conclusion: Comcast has shitty peering with Netflix compared to your work
• EpicEng 10y ago
  Well... I just found out that my connection went from 20Mb to ~120Mb recently. I have no idea when this happened and my bill hasn't changed.
• martin-adams 10y ago
  Cool tool. I'd love to know the story behind how Netflix managed to use such a lucrative domain.
• narfz 10y ago
  is there a bandwidth cap? i constantly get 160Mbps but i know for sure that our office line can do way more. speedtest.net is always close to 900Mbps. maybe speedtest.net has a endpoint within the ISP backbone and netflix not? or is the peering between AWS and my ISP?
• gregmac 10y ago
  Some observations about this: For me, it's getting stuff from https://*.cogeco.isp.nflxvideo.net https://*.cogeco.isp.nflxvideo.net -- which indicates my ISP (Cogeco) is part of their Open Connect [1] program with an on-network netflix cache. Other people are reporting downloads from https://*.ix.nflxvideo.net https://*.ix.nflxvideo.net, which appears to be the Netflix cloud infrastructure. It downloads data from 5 URLs every time, but their sizes fluctuate, something like ~25MB, ~25MB, ~20MB, ~2.2MB, ~1.2MB. The contents of each response appears to be the same (though truncated at a difference place), with the beginning starting with: 5d b9 3c a9 c3 b4 20 30 b9 bc 47 06 ab 63 22 11 `file` doesn't recognize what this is. ---- Since it's https, ISPs shouldn't be able to easily game this (eg: make this go fast, but still throttle video content). So one potential way would be to only start throttling after 25MB is downloaded (or after a connection is open for ~2 minutes): does anyone know how Netflix actually streams? If they have separate HTTP sessions for 'chunks' of a video, then presumably this wouldn't work. They could see if a user visits fast.com and then unthrottle for some amount of time. I'm not sure if ISPs have the infrastructure to do a complex rule like this though (anyone know?). I also think this would be relatively easy for users to notice (anytime they visit fast.com, their netflix problems disappear for a while) and there would be a pretty big backlash about something so blatant. [1] https://openconnect.netflix.com/en/ https://openconnect.netflix.com/en/
• Hesadanza 10y ago
  One thing that Fast.com doesn't say is the top speed that Netflix's servers can deliver. I have 250 Mb fiber connection, and Fast.com tops out at about 150 Mbps for me. Speedtest.net consistently shows 250-280 Mbps. But it's unclear whether the lower rate is Netflix's servers limit, or my ISP throttling them.