For those hatin on speedtest.net and wanting upload, http://speedtest.dslreports.com/ and 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.
>ISPs can't prioritize it without prioritizing netflix as well
There are all kinds of tricks they could use to game this. If they applied their throttles over a 5 min window for instance. I'm really curious what Netflix is doing to guard against that, if anything.
That can also be attributed to deep buffering. Your local router and even the next hop will make it look like data is being transferred instantaneously until their buffers fill up.
Download burst on the order of MB/s in the first few seconds can't be attributed to deep buffering. The router doesn't magically have a buffer of things you might visit.
I tend to use testmy.net, which includes both upload and download.
> The reason for fast.com is that it tests download speed from netflix. ISPs can't prioritize it without prioritizing netflix as well.
Is there any way to distinguish traffic between the two? Does fast.com actually download a random video from Netflix? Does it benefit from the Netflix local caching server? If ISPs can find a way to cheat, some might.
It downloads over https, so anyone watching the traffic can't really get much more than the domain. The download for me comes from ipv6_1-cxl0-c144.1.sea001.ix.nflxvideo.net which is, i assume, one of the Netflix servers in Seattle over IPv6
Netflix should advertise the speeds people are getting from them. And alternative ISPs if things are regularly slow.
Here in the UK we have fibre through one provider and lots through the phone lines because BT were forced to open their network. I get the feeling there is little choice in the US?
