Speed tests are another measure of broadband capacity. The Connectivity Explorer uses the M-Lab NDT speed test data which is an open source speed test. This is not a government data set.
The speed test data is on the page Speedtests > M-Lab Speed Test Results and on Speedtests > M-Lab Progress toward Targets.
The Connectivity Explorer bases its reports on the median test speed per client (as identified by an IP address) for the given time period. Multiple speed tests results from a single client get collapsed into a single reading. This avoids over-weighting clients that report lots of tests.
Speed test results combine business and consumer users. Some people say that they tend to skew high, since slower connections time out and are not counted and people with faster connections may be more inclined to run the test.
- Do the speed test results provide a useful view of the delivered service in your community?
- Are the results consistent with your experience?
- Are there enough speed tests to be useful?
You can improve the speed test data by encouraging people to run speed tests. Just tell them to run the M-Lab speed test or to type “run speed test” into Google. The TestIt application from NACO is available for mobile devices.
Use the selector to customize this search. For example, you can use the calendar to select speed test for the “past 6 months” and then and then change or keep the other defaults (download, mean/median, rolling average over 3 months.)
The number of tests for a specific time period can be viewed by clicking on a “point” in the chart.