That’s the intention of the Minnesota maps too. It is a tool provided to the Minnesota Ultra High-Speed Task Force to help them make recommendations to the Legislature.

I hope the goal of the test isn’t to highlight un-served areas (dialup versus anything better). That would be a sad state of aiming way too low. I’d like to have the maps help determine which areas are underserved, served and served well – so that we can pull other data and see if we can draw some correlations between tier of service in an area and economic vitality and quality of schools and health care and so on – including ability to work from home and start home-based businesses. So home and business access is important.

The Speedmatters test is another flawed example. In fact, it has two problems; one being there is not a truthful way to correlate the zip code to the test. I put in a zip code of 59928 and got a whopping 30mbps download. Funny, I’m actually in 55401 and not in Polebridge MT. Besides the geographic reliability being in question, the other error I witnessed was the upload being “limited” to 7mbps. As you know, we have synchronous connectivity here. I should have seen 30mbps on the upload side too..

Bil

Although I didn’t see a logo, the Speed Matters test appears to be another Ookla test. The FAQ for the Speed Matters test states that, “The speed test has access to a fixed number of servers around the country, automatically choosing the one closest to you to conduct your test. But the server used may be farther from your actual location than is optimal. Other speed tests may have access to far more servers, allowing them to test your speed with a closer one and giving you a faster result.” So yes, it is better than an Ookla test that just uses one server in one location but still may not be accurate.

Unfortunately the only explanation they offer for why downloads speeds are so much faster than upload speeds is that your ISP must be configuring your connection to favor download speeds. Just now my desktop machine tested at 29Mbps downloads but only 1.9Mbps uploads. I know that huge discrepancy is being caused by the test *not* my ISP.

I guess the real question is how are people trying to use these statistics? Are they trying to figure out which areas of the country have just dialup? Which ISPs have oversold their connectivity to their end users or their bandwidth out to the Internet? Are they concerned about bandwidth or connectivity or both? Some national networks have low Mbps prices in part because they have fat pipes that aren’t very well connected across the country. Are they more concerned about home access or business access? (Assuming home users are more likely to be on asymmetrical DSL or Cable connection and businesses are more likely to be on symmetrical T1s and Metro Ethernet connections.)

The issues with the tests are more or less important depending on how the test results are being used.

Here’s another speed test that gets a lot of press:
http://www.speedmatters.org/

It’s maintained by the CWA (Communication Workers of America). Does it have similar issues? It targets users across the US. I had assumed it somehow made allowances for location – but I’m betting it doesn’t. The CWA reports get a ton of press and I’m sure also has an impact on policy decisions.

Thanks for being the smart folks to really look at this!! Ann