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Speed test

CTerrian

Newbie
Here is a speed test comparing my WiFi to the AT&T net. I'm using Comcast as my cable provider with the blast package. I get 50 ms download using my desktop, but less than half on my S5. Does this look right?
http://i.imgur.com/qrhrVoC.png
 

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Whether it looks right depends on a few things:

For the 3G/4G speed:

1) The distance (in nodes) between the AT&T point of presence (IOW, where the signal from your tower enters the internet) and the server you're testing with.

2) How busy that tower and the path to the server are when you make the test.

3) How "clean" (interference-free) your phone's signal to and from the tower is.

The reason speed is sold as "up to" is because the speed you're sold is the speed from you to your provider under ideal conditions. In the case of a cellphone that's standing within a few dozen yards of the tower face, high enough to be within the vertical angle of the face, and with minimal, if any, other traffic. AT&T can't control the speed from their PoP to the Speedtest server you're testing your speed on, so you could be getting 50mbps to AT&T, but 5mbps from a Speedtest server. A 45ms ping says that you have a pretty good connection. (Any 2 digit ping time is pretty good for a cellphone.)

Run a speed test to a server halfway around the world (cellphone or wifi) and you'll see that it's pretty much the farther the server is, the slower the upload and download are (and the higher the ping time is).

Remember that most data transfer thruput (IOW, the speed for an entire large file transfer) these days seldom gets near 2mbps (even though each packet may be going at 30mbps from your provider to your phone or router - with a huge amount of time between packets), so unless you're downloading a dozen large files at once, you shouldn't be having any problems. Streaming Youtube with no buffering seldom takes more than about 600kbps. (If you're buffering, your path to their server is either very busy or very long.)

As far as the wifi speed, that depends on what channel your router is on (if everyone in range is on the same channel your speed is going to be terrible), the speed your provider is limiting you to (if you're buying 20mbps, a Speedtest server not too close to their PoP [a mile or so] giving you almost 20mbps isn't bad) and the relative locations of your router and your phone. If the phone is on a different floor than he router the signal is going to be weaker, since the antenna pattern of most rouers is like a disk - lots of signal to the sides, almost nothing above or below, so it's more subject to interference, so thruput is slower. Install Wifi Overview 360 to get an idea of what's happening. (It'll also tell you which channel it's best to run your router on, based on what channels are being used where you are. And as different neighbors buy different routers, that changes. Run the app as a first measure if your wifi speed seems to slow down or change intermittently.)

BTW, you can have a laptop sitting on one table getting a totally different speed than a phone sitting at another table. A neighbor's signal may be very strong at one spot in your house, due to being focused by the side of your refrigerator or some other metal object, or a metal object may be blocking your device from your router in a fan-shaped area that's only a few feet wide where you're sitting. (And if you're using b, g or n wifi with a device that has a microwave oven near it, near the router or between them, when the oven is running you'll probably lose the signal altogether. 802.11a is on a different frequency so it will be affected, but not as badly.)
 
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