The best "speed test" will be an FTP site provided by your ISP. Because of 
intermediate nodes along the network path you  will probably never see your 
full link speed - even if the end point is a very fust, unloaded server.

On Saturday 28 February 2004 10:57 am, Thomas Miller wrote:
> Christian Biere <christianbiere@gmx.de> wrote:
> > You expect ftp.NetBSD.org to serve you with 5 Mb/s?
>
> Well, I hear NetBSD is extremely fast. . . .  :-)
>
> > I'd think it throttles connections to a reasonable limit.
>
> If it's not too impolite to discuss in public, what
> get limit, if any, is enforced on ftp.netbsd.org?
>
> Can anyone suggest where I could connect to an ftp
> server that will for sure serve me a file at 5 Mbps
> if the connection will support that speed?
>
> My ISP is charging me extra to bump the speed of my
> connection from "up to 3" to "up to 5" Mbps.  But,
> assuming the speed reports from the NetBSD ftp client
> are an appropriate measure, I'm hardly ever getting
> files at over 3 Mbps, let alone 5.  Maybe I should
> donate the extra money to The NetBSD Foundation
> instead of paying it to my ISP?
>
> Kindest regards,
>
> Tom
>
> > > P.S. I appreciate that 5,000,000 is not a power of 2,
> > > so maybe the connection speed should be expressed as
> > > 5 x 1,048,576.
> >
> > 5 Mbps is really 5 million bits per second.
> >
> > --
> > Christian
> >
> > As you can see, this a signature. It's not related to the contents of the
> > mail in any way. But you probably won't listen to me anyway, will you?

-- 

John R. Shannon
john@johnrshannon.com