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Show HN: I built an internet speed analytics tool

ronaldlangeveld.com

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Re: Show HN: I built an internet speed analytics tool

#21

Post by Cthulhu_ »

zaphar wrote: post #19

I love seeing all these approaches to the same basic problem. Catching your ISP in the act of providing poor service. Here's mine: https://github.com/zaphar/durnitisp No readme sorry. It uses UDP packets to various different stun servers to export network statistics to prometheus. Then I just use grafana to review the results.

iirc Netflix set up a dashboard to show just this - how shit is your ISP when it comes to (specifically) passing Netflix data. They can use that to point out violations of net neutrality as well: https://ispspeedindex.netflix.net/. It seems pretty healthy nowadays, although they only seem to measure up to 3.6 Mbit/s

Re: Show HN: I built an internet speed analytics tool

#22

Post by windexh8er »

imglorp wrote: post #14
jayonsoftware wrote: post #7

Get https://www.speedtest.net/apps/cli , run it on a cron job, out put can be json or csv . What I like on this is i can set different servers. - Jay

During the throttling wars, I seem to remember hearing somewhere that ISPs recognize speedtest.net runs and optimize for them, while also throttling competing content providers like NF. That is why fast.com was built: if ISPs throttle Netflix, they'll also be throttling fast.com so it will be reflected there.

This is true and still is. Most larger ISP will have Speedtest servers in their infrastructure. I remember installing one of their servers in 2010 in the ISP I was working for at the time. The thing it doesn't mask is last mile type issues. So if the node you're on in an HFC is oversubscribed and you start complaining about it, and can show this during peak hours using their own Speedtest server, they'll likely shuffle RF or split the node to relieve the congestion. In that case it does have value. You can also select the server you want to test against so it's not hard to validate speeds and latency outside of the, potentially, local-only test.

Re: Show HN: I built an internet speed analytics tool

#23

Post by virtuallynathan »

This is built on top of a tool that is highly unreliable at speeds over ~100Mbps. Data: https://web.archive.org/web/20201014061733/https://github.co...

I would highly advise using the official speedtest.net CLI.

The dev of speedtest-cli nuked the issues page of his repo due to complaints about this, and refuses to acknowledge it, leading to people using this tool without understanding its limitations.

Re: Show HN: I built an internet speed analytics tool

#24

Post by doctorhandshake »

This makes me wonder if there could be a version of this that attempts to extrapolate the ISP network topology, at least to the node level, and to arm users with information at the level of ‘your issue is shared with at least 5 others in your area’.

Re: Show HN: I built an internet speed analytics tool

#26

Post by chakerb »

martin_a wrote: post #20
bart__ wrote: post #16

I don't my ISP would care if I show them a graph that my service is bad.

It worked very well for me. My ISP in Germany was lending cables from another ISP. They failed to fulfill the "up to 100 MBit/s" claim all the time. So I set up a Raspberry Pi (which is a bit flawed, as the network interface on the older models was too slow, to begin with) and let it run speedtests every 5 minutes for four weeks. The graph looked terribly enough that I was allowed to change ISPs without any cancellat…

I gets very confused by marketing terms. But doesn't giving you only 1MBit/s during the whole day counts in "up to 100Mbit/s"? I'm trying to understand the legal merits in a case like this.

Re: Show HN: I built an internet speed analytics tool

#27

Post by chakerb »

bart__ wrote: post #16

I don't my ISP would care if I show them a graph that my service is bad.

In my case as well this is true. ISPs ( especially when they have monopolies) don't care about this. I live in a town with 8K people and the whole town is sharing an uplink of 300Mbit/s. And we complained a lot but due to how only one single ( governmental) provider have the rights to install cable internet, we're stuck with what we have.

Re: Show HN: I built an internet speed analytics tool

#28

Post by rozab »

bart__ wrote: post #16

I don't my ISP would care if I show them a graph that my service is bad.

All major UK ISPs abide to Ofcom's Code of Practice which means you have the right to get out of the contract with no consequences if they fail to reach their minimum advertised speed. This feels like a bit of a raw deal, since they get to keep the months payment for a service they failed to provide, but it's better than nothing.

Re: Show HN: I built an internet speed analytics tool

#29

Post by martin_a »

chakerb wrote: post #26
martin_a wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It worked very well for me. My ISP in Germany was lending cables from another ISP. They failed to fulfill the "up to 100 MBit/s" claim all the time. So I set up a Raspberry Pi (which is a bit flawed, as the network interface on the older models was too slow, to begin with) and let it run speedtests every 5 minutes for four weeks. The graph looked terribly enough that I was allowed to change ISPs without any cancellat…

I gets very confused by marketing terms. But doesn't giving you only 1MBit/s during the whole day counts in "up to 100Mbit/s"? I'm trying to understand the legal merits in a case like this.

Marketing-wise that's true (and probably also from a legal point of view). But they were constantly delivering 25 MBit/s or less, even through the night. That's pretty bad for a large german city.

Not sure if you couldn't "sue" them or whatnot for not fulfilling their part of the contract. I was fine with being able to change, that's where my journey ended.

Point for me was: It's a good idea to collect "evidence" and it sometimes helps to have numbers at hand.

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