Yesterday we invited you to compare your speed to other readers on the Lifehacker Speed Wave, and you responded in huge numbers. But are we really enjoying average download speeds of 17Mb/s?
As I write this, there are 951 entries on the Speed Wave, with an average download speed of 17.02Mb/s, upload speed of 7.26Mb/s, and ping time of 47ms. Those times are broadly consistent with everyone having a healthy ADSL2 connection, though the upload speeds are rather more generous than you’d expect. Obviously there was a lot of testing going on from workplaces.
That said, if we exclude the top six results (all of which had average speeds over 100Mb/s), the download speed drops to 15.37M/s, while excluding the top six upload results reduces the average upload speed to 6.3Mb/s. I’m still jealous of people with AARnet connections and other high-speed links though.
Thanks everyone for taking part (and if you haven’t, the wave is still open).
eroded
Thursday, March 10, 2011 at 2:32 PMwell im rocking
18.79 Mb/s 0.86 Mb/s 15 ms
but those top results are craaaaazy :)
Terry
Thursday, March 10, 2011 at 2:32 PMI was able to enjoy a 70mbps downstream connection at uni on WiFi but then the semester started.
Tom
Thursday, March 10, 2011 at 2:32 PMOne thing I’ve learnt so far is that iiNet (who I’m with) a lot of the tests are getting under 1Mb/s uploads. Always thought it was just a me thing.
Tim
Thursday, March 10, 2011 at 2:44 PMThe median is probably the more representative view of “average” which says around 9mb/s download and 0.8mbps upload.
(Based on a cursory glance around the middle of page 9.)
Michael Xion
Thursday, March 10, 2011 at 2:53 PMSorry guys. Gonna have to call garbage on this. Speedtest is only useful for comparing your own connection to a consistent host over time to diagnose your connection problems. There are so many factors at play here. I’m on the Sunshine Coast, yet my down/up speeds are 3 times faster to the Sydney host than they are to the Sunshine Coast. Sure it’s fun to see who can get the highest score, but it means nothing.
Michael Xion
Thursday, March 10, 2011 at 3:01 PM…might I suggest Kampala, Uganda as the default server to compare everyone’s speed? I’ll kick it off with a ping of 1011ms, .29mbps up , .18mbps down. Woohoo, I is a winner!!!
Nick
Thursday, March 10, 2011 at 3:24 PMContributed my awesome TPG connection *cough*
Download: 5.81Mb
Upload: 0.87Mb
Yay to the power suicide
brant
Thursday, March 10, 2011 at 5:09 PMCry me a river, I’ve had a 512 kbps download rate for the best of 3 years.
You should be happy.
Hunter Beanland
Thursday, March 10, 2011 at 3:54 PMI wish they asked for your plan type – I would love to compare plans/ISPs to make this a little more meaningful. Will have to wait for Whirlpool to release their 2011 survey results, but that doesn’t include a speed test.
Angus
Thursday, March 10, 2011 at 5:33 PMMy work connection is:
Down:38.24 Up:13.89 Ping:30
Xheis
Thursday, March 10, 2011 at 9:43 PMI’m enjoying my 300kb/s download speed and whopping 0.98MB/s linespeed for ADSL2+.
Still, optus is so cheap i couldn’t care less.
Oh wait, the test sent me to melbourne due to better performance. I need to change.
David Anderton
Friday, March 11, 2011 at 2:34 AMiinet
5.19 down
.81 up
20ms ping
I-Zzac Hunt
Friday, March 11, 2011 at 6:02 AMOy, excluding over 100 mb is not quite valid, my 101mb was in fact from my home OPTUS cable connection.
I only dream of speeds like that at work!
Angus Kidman
Friday, March 11, 2011 at 6:05 AMRemoving 100+ was more to make the point that taking out just a handful of outlier values alters the average quite a lot.
Christopher Fox
Friday, March 11, 2011 at 9:04 AMWell I think I just officially got the High Score for this test. See below…
http://www.speedtest.net/result/1195068932.png
Damo
Friday, March 11, 2011 at 9:18 AMHow annoying. I’m on bigpond’s top cable plan and only got 10 download and 1 upload. Humph!
Ha
Friday, March 11, 2011 at 5:20 PMMy contribution to the average: 0.95 Down, 0.17 Up, 82ms ping
Ha
Friday, March 11, 2011 at 5:24 PMAnd just want to add, I’m on the first page of the downloads! If you sort it from slowest to fastest…
And hold 23rd spot for slowest upload at the moment.
baleric
Monday, March 14, 2011 at 12:34 AMWINNAH !!!
@home 24.5 mb down uncontended
@work – 100 mb down uncontended.
Jacob
Monday, March 14, 2011 at 9:20 PM116 ping – 0.21 MBPS Down 0.27 MBPS up… FML I wish ADSL was available in my area and i wasn’t stuck on 3G….