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Old 20th July 2008
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ai-danno ai-danno is offline
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The speedtests mentioned on dslreports and speakeasy and speedtest are decent approximations of bandwidth across the path to the testing point in question on the internet, and IPERF will show you what the connection is fully capable of between two IPERF testing points (meaning you have to have IPERF installed on each end.)

I make this distinction because IPERF is normally a good test on LAN's (testing to see if that 100Mbps between your servers is actually 100Mbps or close to it)... and those other tests referenced above are good for "Internet connection" circuit testing... but beware to the user, those outside tests are subject to lots of potential real-world issues, like problems/bandwidth capabilities on the tested endpoint, connection/path issues between the tested endpoints, and potential rate-limiting by ISP's in the path. If testing for that purpose, I would test multiple times on as many different test platforms as possible to get a real approximation of what your "internet connection" is capable of.

I used to be of BSDFan666's opinion that the "Internet Connection" tests aren't that useful, as in the past their algorithms and approximated calculations could lead to some wild responses. But lately (whether the paths on the Internet have improved or the code used in the testing has improved... or both) I've found they are much more accurate than in the past.
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