I'm a Comcast customer, because I simply don't have a comparable option for high speed internet. My dealings with them have been painful, but luckily I've only needed to speak to a human, or get an install, on a very rare occassion.

So I decided to test my speed. I happened across a page they use to have business users test their access speed, in an effort to get them to switch to Comcast:

[Link: business.comcast.com]

I suggest you run the test with your connection.

Then notice the following sentence on that page "If you are an existing Business Class Internet subscriber, please test your speeds here."

In other words, if you are a customer they want you to use a different page to test your speed! This sounds fishy to me.

So if you click on that link, you're taken to this page:

http://speedtest.comcast.net/

I notice one thing, the speeds on the page given to current Comcast customers, show much faster than the speeds they send users who aren't Comcast customers to test their connection!

I'd like to see if others get similar results to me.

Competition's Speed Test: 5.5Mbps Dn, 4.3Mbps Up

Comcast Customer Test: 21.04Mbps Dn, 5.70Mbps Up

This seems a little more than fishy... Sounds like either a downright lie, or at the least telling much less than the truth, by testing competitors speeds, with an overworked server. Either way... looks to me like Comcast is being Slimey!

What were your results, and vote for Comcast, Truthful or Slimey!

I have a consumer Comcast account, and it tested virtually identically on each site. I think I used Colorado on the one where you select the server.

Most of the bigger providers have load/speed algorithms that monitor and control bandwidth and throughput. And most of them detect when you visit sight like that, Speakeasy, speedtest.net etc and they optimize your throughput for it. Notice how the speed increases over time as the test runs? I find the Comcast one is jacked up at least 20% more then other site.


Try the more obscure test sites. In fairness they use the optimization to speed other downloads. And my Comcast (residential) service speed is currently fast enough for my needs.

I would suggest they are actually reporting the speed which they are pounding your arse and not your download speed :)

My speed up and down is within .02 Mbps for both sites.

You have a lot to learn about the internet and connection speeds it seams..

I started the scan yesterday and it still hasn't finished.


Maybe it has something to do with my Commodore 64?

This is one hell of a come-on, implying that bcf doesn't know what he's talking about, but you do, and you back up your implication with... nothing.

Please inform us.

Abso F'in lutely!

I just tested my speed at all three sites and it was about the same accross the board; 13 mps down and 1.5 up. I use TWC.

And it *seems* you have a lot to learn about spelling. Sorry, you set yourself up for that one :-).

Glad to hear others are having much better results. I suspect that they are prioritizing speedtest traffic on one server, and not the other. So, the results I was seeing are likely a function of how busy the server was. Sounds like they may be "guilding the lily" a bit, but not an outright misinformation campaign. So, they aren't totally slimy, just a little "used car salesman". :)

I would take many online speedtests with a grain of salt. I typically use http://speedtest.net to test speeds on jobsites. However, at home, as Optimum is both my ISP and just happens to host the local speedtest.net server, I'll double-check every so often with http://dslreports.com. No surprise; the Optimum-hosted test is always faster. 

I tested last night and today. Both times, the first test showed ~6 Mbps down and 2 Mbps up, and the second test showed ~18Mbps down and 2Mbps up. I pay for 20/2. No idea where the first test is hosted though, I chose San Jose for the second, which is in SoCal near me. 

Umm, San Jose is NorCal.