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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 whi

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.

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.