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Ask HN: Internet magically gets faster when opening speedtest?

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Re: Ask HN: Internet magically gets faster when opening speedtest?

#241

Post by zw123456 »

Szpadel wrote: post #204

I had the same thing with my previous internet provider, I even set up iperf3 test to confirm that and it was clear when watching anything from youtube. It was so bad that it could barely keep up with 144p on YouTube and when speed test was running i could easily watch anything in 4k, but imidietely when test was finished everything was back to snail speed. I ended up with doing download only speed test in loop from…

agree iperf to a server is a good test as long as the 5 tuple is rotated so they dont figure it out.

Re: Ask HN: Internet magically gets faster when opening speedtest?

#243

Post by Diesel555 »

cj wrote: post #24
UI_at_80x24 wrote: post #20

I was on the phone with a buddy trying to troubleshoot Local file transfer speeds vs Speedtest results. Speedtest kept reporting 100Mb/s range speeds (the tier he was paying for). Local file transfers however were stuck in the 1MB/s range. After some questions and troubleshooting he discovered that he had used a 10Mb/s hub instead of a 1Gb/s switch that was sitting right next to it. A simple mixup. His internet conne…

Edit: removed due to downvoting. Original comment pointed out that transfer speed is normally measured in Mbps not MB/s.

> Speedtest kept reporting 100Mb/s range speeds (the tier he was paying for). Local file transfers however were stuck in the 1MB/s range

I read that speed test reported 100Mb/s and local files were receiving 8Mb/s (1MB/s). Either interpretation doesn’t change the intent much. But now I’m curious if the MB was intentional.

I don’t really care what the normal convention is, but the fact that Mbps and MB/s are sometimes used interchangeably does cause confusion, especially outside this environment.

Was the choice to use Mbps as a standard a marketing idea? Like they have 1 MB/s? Well we have 8 Mb/s.

Re: Ask HN: Internet magically gets faster when opening speedtest?

#244

Post by hkt »

edwinbalani wrote: post #153
hkt wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Classic story where this is related: https://www.ibiblio.org/harris/500milemail.html tl;dr timeout was sufficiently low and user sufficiently skilled to work out his emails could be delivered only within 500 miles

My favourite aspect of this story is how the academics, being academics, took it upon themselves to characterise the problem in detail before telling the postmaster about it. Could just as easily have said "huh, that's weird" and thrown it at them on day one.

And their explanation was probably more baffling to the admin than a simple "it is broken" report too. It would definitely have been for me.

Re: Ask HN: Internet magically gets faster when opening speedtest?

#245

Post by LeoPanthera »

eli wrote: post #225
ranger207 wrote: post #26

Yes, this is true. This is why Netflix runs fast.com: it serves Netflix content from Netflix servers, so if ISPs want to prioritize fast.com content they'll have to prioritize Netflix content as well. Of course, that doesn't help non-Netflix sites...

Google does the same if you search “speed test” they have one that runs through the search results page. Cloudflare runs one too. https://speed.cloudflare.com/ Those are all harder to game than speedtest.net

The cloudflare one is the most accurate I've ever found. People often accuse it of "reading low" but after much experimentation I think it actually reads accurately and most of the others read fast.

So much of the web is behind cloudflare that most ISPs are unwilling to prioritize traffic to it. It also loads a selection of dummy files of varying sizes which is a more realistic portrayal of normal internet usage than a single stream of data.

Re: Ask HN: Internet magically gets faster when opening speedtest?

#246

Post by aendruk »

The thing I keep getting suspicious about is occasionally network traffic will stop, I begin troubleshooting with a traceroute, and then coincidentally traffic will resume. It feels like the traceroute fixed the problem but it must just be my imagination. Right?

Re: Ask HN: Internet magically gets faster when opening speedtest?

#247

Post by Spooky23 »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #215
ranger207 wrote: post #26

Yes, this is true. This is why Netflix runs fast.com: it serves Netflix content from Netflix servers, so if ISPs want to prioritize fast.com content they'll have to prioritize Netflix content as well. Of course, that doesn't help non-Netflix sites...

This doesn't make sense to me as an explanation for OP reported behavior, that opening a speed test would make other content load faster than it was before opening the speed test. (Doesn't make sense to me whether or not the other content was netflix, but presumably it was not (all) netflix).

Time Warner used to have a “turbo” mode where connections would temporarily speed up when you started a download.

Pretty sure many ISPs do something like this - especially on mobile. If you have access to a prioritized phone, the side by side comparisons are pretty interesting.

Re: Ask HN: Internet magically gets faster when opening speedtest?

#248

Post by landemva »

withinboredom wrote: post #214
serenitylater wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can have plenty of projects get done that take longer than 4 years. You will have problems getting projects done that half the country hates if it takes longer than 4 years. This seems like a feature not a bug.

One entire point of government is to work on multi-generational projects — like nuclear waste storage.

Maybe there would be tangible progress on waste storage/ processing if government set standards and then got out of the way. That seems to be working in the area of space launches.

Re: Ask HN: Internet magically gets faster when opening speedtest?

#249

Post by deltaonefour »

Good way to run a business. Run your business and on the side create a speed test on the side and call it the only accurate speed test and explain the business model of other speed tests and how the ISP prioritizes speed tests sites and how your site is the only accurate test around.

Then when your speed test gets popular. ISP's will think they're clever and start prioritizing your site!

That's when you BOOM! switch servers and point the DNS's to the new servers! Flip the servers running your business to the speed test servers and flip the speed test servers to your business!

Be sure to switch it back during off hours. Now you have a SUPER fast business operation and in addition to that a speed test site that is STILL more accurate then other speed test sites.

Re: Ask HN: Internet magically gets faster when opening speedtest?

#250

Post by Spooky23 »

zffr wrote: post #218
ranger207 wrote: post #26

Yes, this is true. This is why Netflix runs fast.com: it serves Netflix content from Netflix servers, so if ISPs want to prioritize fast.com content they'll have to prioritize Netflix content as well. Of course, that doesn't help non-Netflix sites...

I’m not sure why, but I’m seeing 1mbps on fast.com, and 20mbps on speedtest.net. Weird how there’s such a huge difference

T-Mobile and others offer “HD Video” as a premium. So they cap the connection to Netflix to force 720p video.
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