Centurylink Speed Test Vs Speedtest Net Speed Test

The best way to see if you have a bad connection is to take a speed test online. Once you get a hold of some speed test results, you can compare them to others and see how fast or slow your connection is compared to the rest of the world.

While these sites are all great, they do have some flaws. Speedtest net owned by Ookla, the company that does all of the speed testings for these sites is also owned by them as well. This can sometimes lead to biased results in the comparison graph because your internet provider has a vested interest in making it seem like they have a better connection than the others. It is also known that many times these tests are hosted on servers close to your location, and while this does give you a good indication of the speed coming from their servers it still could be biased towards being slower.

However, there is another alternative to these two sites which may not always have as pretty of a user interface but appears to be a bit more reliable .speedtest .net great example of a good speed test site, one that does not have as much bias in the comparison graph and is hosted on servers all over the world based on location so it makes for a much more accurate reading in many cases.

The only problem with these speed tests if you will call it a problem is that they are harder to read and sometimes even harder to understand. All the site shows is your location, provider, ping time (which can be very important for gaming, etc) , upload speed in Mbps which is always 1/1000 of an Mbps, and download speed which is the main one that most people will be looking at.

Difference Between These Two Speed Test Sites?

They both offer all of the same things and they use almost identical tests in order to get their information. The only real differences are the way it presents itself, how easy it is to read and understand, the company behind it, the servers it uses to get its information, and of course the history behind it.

Well while these sites do give you the same information, they each have their own set of pros and cons. Let's start off with the CenturyLink speed test for example. The pro for this speed test is that it is owned by your internet provider so you know they are not going to be biased towards one of their competitors. They tend to use the servers located closest to your area, which could benefit or really hurt you as well depending on where exactly their servers are located and whether or not you have a good connection with them. While they do not list the servers that they use, you can usually figure it out just by doing some research and paying attention to where on the map your speed test starts. It will usually be one of the closest cities on the map or maybe a neighboring area with a similar amount of people in said area. The big con for this speed test is that only CenturyLink customers or people who are living in an area serviced by CenturyLink can use their test. Since they have a vested interest in showing good results for themselves, it cannot be taken as a reliable speed test when comparing to other services such as DSL, Cable, and even Fiber Optic internet service providers.

The Speedtest. net speed test on the other hand is run by Ookla an independent company that does all of the testings for these kinds of sites. They list over 10,000 servers all around the world strategically placed based on population and internet traffic to make it more accurate when you do a speed test. This means for instance their server could be located in San Francisco, California. Where many people live and use the internet on a daily basis. This will show you if your ISP is having any sort of issues in that area at that time. You can even do multiple tests each day with different servers to see how consistent it really is according to Ookla's standards. If one test comes out great but another test from that same server shows nothing much improvement then they are probably having an issue in your area affecting you and other customers at that time.