Contention or ISP or something else?

Hello

I seem to recall seeing here a way of identifying whether speed problems
relate to contention or to the ISP. Can anyone help?

I have an 8mb max connection with VISPA who remain very reliable for
getting on line at any time. Download speeds are varying between 1mb and
6mb download and 0.3 - 0.4 upload. Typically download under 4mb but just
recorded 5.5mb. (ADSL speed test)

BT comes up with the following. I am only 70 metres from the exchange.
My router is at present on the end of a 40 feet long extension but that
wouldn't explain the wide variations in speed.

http://speedtester.bt.com/ results as follows.

Results Image not loaded

Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test:
IP profile for your line is - 7150 kbps
DSL connection rate: 448 kbps(UP-STREAM) 8128 kbps(DOWN-STREAM)
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 2504 kbps

TIA for any help.

The Invisible Man wrote:

> I seem to recall seeing here a way of identifying whether speed problems
> relate to contention or to the ISP. Can anyone help?

use speedtest@speedtest_domain as login to bypass ISP. Can only run BT
speedtests (old and new version - see
http://newsnet.googlepages.com/maxdsldiagnostics ).

With some ISPs the new speedtest speedtester.bt.com bypasses the ISP
too - traceroute to it to check.

Phil