{"id":6378,"date":"2025-01-21T13:19:10","date_gmt":"2025-01-21T20:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xmission.com\/blog\/?p=6378"},"modified":"2025-01-22T07:18:33","modified_gmt":"2025-01-22T14:18:33","slug":"xmission-labs-speed-test-lab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xmission.com\/blog\/2025\/01\/21\/xmission-labs-speed-test-lab","title":{"rendered":"XMission Labs: Speed Test Lab"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Here I would like to show you how I was able to run accurate speed test results on a multi-gigabit connection. While this article was written with our 2.5Gb and 10Gb customers in mind, a lot of this advice will apply to anyone who wants to get an accurate speed test, so feel free to read on!<\/p>\n

Before we get started, remember there are two key players involved whenever you run a speed test: the speed test client (the device you\u2019re using to run the speed test), and the speed test server. Whenever you run a speed test, the speed test client talks to a speed test server to measure two things: how much data the server can send to the client (how fast your download speeds are), and how much data the client can send to the speed test server (how fast your upload speeds are).<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also important to remember that in order to get the most accurate speed test result, you want to remove as many potential bottlenecks between the speed test server (in this case, XMission\u2019s speed test server) and the speed test client\u2014the device you\u2019ll be running the speed test from. Bottlenecks can be anything that could potentially slow down or interfere with the conversation between your speed test client and the speed test server\u2014in other words, if there\u2019s something between your client and the server that could meddle with the speed test, your speed test result is going to look slower than your connection really is.<\/p>\n

Now our blog post mentioned some of the potential bottlenecks you might encounter, but you can lump these bottlenecks into three general categories: hardware, software, and latency.<\/p>\n

Hardware bottlenecks are pretty straightforward: Is your speed test client using hardware that can support 2.5Gb or 10Gb connections? What about the speed test server? And how about every device between your client and the server? All of these devices must be connecting to one another at the same speed or higher, otherwise your speed test results are going to look much slower.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a 2.5Gb or 10Gb XMission customer, you can rest easy knowing that everything between your fiber device and XMission\u2019s speed test server will have a connection of 10Gb or higher, so you only need to make sure your client device has the right hardware and is connecting at the right speed.<\/p>\n

Software bottlenecks can be pretty tricky to define and think about so often fly under the radar, but consider: You use a program or software to run a speed test. When you visit speedtest.xmission.com<\/a> to run a speed test, you\u2019re using your Internet browser\u2014and that\u2019s software, baby! What software you use to run a speed test may give you more or less accurate speed test results, especially when it comes to multi-gigabit connections. On top of that, if your speed test client is running other software while you\u2019re running a speed test, then you will get slower speed test results. If you want to get the most accurate speed test results, make sure to close any other programs or software running on your speed test client before you start your speed test.<\/p>\n

Last is latency\u2014this is a measurement of the time it takes a message from one device to cross a network before it\u2019s received by the other device, and is usually measured in milliseconds. Broadly speaking, two devices that are geographically close to each other will have lower latency, and two devices that are geographically farther apart will have higher latency. All this means is if you\u2019re in Utah and run a speed test to a speed test server in Georgia, it\u2019s going to take a little more time to send data from Utah to Georgia (and vice versa) because the latency is going to be higher than sending data to a server in Utah. So, your speed test results will be slower as a result.<\/p>\n

So putting it all together: In order to get an accurate speed test result, make sure you\u2019re using hardware that can connect at the right speed, you\u2019ve closed all non-speed test programs on your client and are using the right speed test software, and you\u2019re choosing a speed test server that\u2019s geographically close to you that has low latency. Next I\u2019ll show you how I ran speed tests in XMission\u2019s lab and what steps I took to get accurate 2.5Gb and 10Gb speed test results\u2014follow along and you can get them, too!<\/p>\n

Topology:<\/h2>\n

While our lab doesn\u2019t use the exact fiber device you may have installed in your home, everything else is set up to mirror the same path on our network that our customers will take when connecting to our speed test server.<\/p>\n

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You might notice in that diagram I\u2019m connecting my speed test client (my laptop) directly to the fiber device\u2014there\u2019s no WiFi router involved. Normally your WiFi router should be connected to the fiber device, but if you want the most accurate speed test results, I highly recommend removing your WiFi router and plugging your speed test client directly to the fiber device with a CAT6 Ethernet cable.<\/p>\n

Yes, that means no WiFi is involved. You will not get accurate speed test results when connecting over WiFi.<\/p>\n

For these tests I\u2019m using a refurbished HP laptop running Windows 11 as my speed test client. (We\u2019ve gotten excellent mulit-gig speed test results on Apple and Linux devices). This laptop does not have an Ethernet port on it, but it does have Thunderbolt 3 ports (these look like USB C ports, but with a little lightning bolt on them<\/a>). I\u2019m using a USB\/Thunderbolt 3-to-Ethernet adapter so I can connect my laptop to the fiber device with an CAT6 Ethernet cable. I’m using this 10Gb Ethernet adapter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So, I have a laptop connecting to a 10G USB-to-Ethernet adapter, connecting to a CAT6 Ethernet cable, connecting to the 10G Ethernet port on our lab\u2019s fiber device. All the hardware I need to worry about is 10Gb-capable, so there are no hardware-related bottlenecks. But it\u2019s easy to get cocky, so let\u2019s double-check the laptop is really connecting at 10Gb by checking my networking settings.<\/p>\n

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Click on the networking icon on the taskbar in the bottom-right (1), then click on the gear in the pop-up (2).<\/p>\n

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This will bring up a new Settings window. Click on \u201cNetwork & internet\u201d (3), then click on the \u201cEthernet\u201d option (4). This will show you details about your Ethernet connection, including the Link Speed.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hey wait a minute! My link speed is only 2.5Gb (or 2500Mb), not 10Gb! It turns out I accidentally connected my 2.5G USB-to-Ethernet adapter<\/a> instead of my 10Gb USB-to-Ethernet adapter! Good thing I double-checked \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

There, I connected my 10G Ethernet adapter and can now confirm I\u2019m really connecting at 10Gb now. Let\u2019s pull up speedtest.xmission.com<\/a> in my browser and test these speeds!
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

Wait, I can\u2019t even break 4Gb upload and download? But I\u2019m using a 10G Ethernet adapter and connecting at 10Gb, so what gives?<\/p>\n

So here\u2019s our first software bottleneck: Internet browsers (Firefox, Chrome, etc.) can\u2019t really handle the data transfers needed for multi-gig speed tests so your speed test results when using a browser will usually be under 4Gb\u2014not very accurate at all! Let\u2019s try testing our speeds with a different kind of software: iPerf3! This is a command-line software you can use for testing your network speeds. Here\u2019s how you install iPerf3 and run it on Windows 11:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Go to iPerf3.fr<\/a> and click on \u201cDownload iPerf binaries\u201d, there should be two options you can click on for Windows\u2014I\u2019m using the first link, but both work.<\/p>\n

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\nScrolled to the bottom and selected the latest version of iPerf3\u2014version 18_64.<\/p>\n

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Once it\u2019s finished downloading, go to your Downloads folder, you should see a .zip file called \u201ciPerf3.18_64.zip\u201d. You\u2019ll need to extract the files first. You can use your favorite software to do this, or follow this guide<\/a>. Once you\u2019ve unzipped the contents, you should have a new folder in your Downloads directory called \u201ciPerf3.18_64\u201d<\/p>\n

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Now to run the iPerf3 software, you\u2019ll need to use the text-based command prompt. You can open a command prompt window by typing \u201ccmd\u201d in the Windows Search Bar (1), and then clicking on the \u201cCommand Prompt\u201d option (2). This will open a black window with white text in it.<\/p>\n

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Next you\u2019ll want to get to the iPerf3.18_64 folder that\u2019s in your Downloads folder. To do this, just type \u201ccd Downloads\\iPerf3.18_64\u201d then press \u201cEnter\u201d. Now we\u2019re ready to run an iPerf3 speed test!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

You run the speed test by typing the command \u201ciperf3 -c speedtest.xmission.com\u201d then pressing \u201cEnter\u201d. What iperf3 is doing is contacting the speed test server \u201cspeedtest.xmission.com\u201d and sending it as much data as it can for ten seconds, then it measures how fast your connection is by calculating how much data your client was able to send in that time. After waiting a few seconds the speed test will finish—you\u2019ll want to focus on the last lines at the bottom and look at the numbers under the \u201cBitrate\u201d column. Here you can see my laptop was able to get 9.35Gb upload speeds on a 10Gb connection—much faster than the results I got from my browser! This is a very accurate and old-school way of checking your speeds.If you want to test how fast your Download speeds are, type the command \u201ciperf3 -c speedtest.xmission.com -R\u201d then press \u201cEnter\u201d—this command reverses the test, making the speed test server send data to your client. <\/p>\n

If you\u2019re in Colorado or Montana and want to run a multi-gig iPerf test, XMission has iPerf servers in the Southern Ute Nation and Bozeman respectively. If you want to run a test against these servers, make sure to use the following commands:<\/p>\n

For the Southern Ute server: iperf3 -c iperf.soute.xmission.com<\/p>\n

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For the Yellowstone Fiber server: iperf3 -c iperf.ysf.xmission.com<\/p>\n

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Now if you\u2019re not a fan of the command prompt, there\u2019s another way to run a speed test without using a browser: Ookla\u2019s Desktop App. Download it from their website<\/a>. If you\u2019re like me and can\u2019t\/don\u2019t use Microsoft\u2019s App store, you can download the Windows 7 version directly from their website, it works exactly the same<\/p>\n

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Now, the Ookla Desktop App can look very similar to running a speed test in your browser, but don\u2019t be confused! The desktop app is a completely different software than your browser, and is programmed specifically to handle the data transfers used in multi-gig speed tests.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And there you go! That\u2019s what an accurate multi-gig speed test looks..hey, wait: only 4.3Gb download and 7.5Gb upload??? But I\u2019m connecting at 10Gb what gives?
\nOhhh that\u2019s right: I got bored writing this guide and started playing a game on my laptop, then forgot about the game and then ran the Ookla Speedtest App while my game was still running on my laptop.<\/p>\n

So here\u2019s your reminder of another potential software-based bottleneck that can lower your speeds: other software! Running a multi-gig speed test can take up a lot CPU processing power, and all software have to share that processing power among themselves. If you have a lot of other programs, apps, or other software running while you\u2019re doing a speed test, your speed test results are going to look bad because your CPU is busy multi-tasking and can\u2019t 100% focus on just your speed test software. Make sure to close all software, apps, and programs on your speed test client before running a speed test. Some programs run in the background and can\u2019t easily be closed, so you can also try booting your Windows machine into Safe Mode with Networking Enabled<\/a> and running a speed test there for the most accurate results.<\/p>\n

But I don\u2019t really want to close my game just yet, and I\u2019m not really convinced the game is really slowing down my speed test results. Let me run another iPerf speed test real quick:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Well, 8.5Gb upload is better, but that\u2019s almost 1Gb slower than the iPerf test I ran before I started playing my game. I guess my game is slowing down my speed test results after all. Let\u2019s close my game and try running another speed test with the Ookla Desktop App.
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

That\u2019s much better!<\/h2>\n

These speed test results are very similar to the ones I got when running an iPerf test\u20149.3Gb download, 9.3Gb upload. Now that\u2019s what you want to see in an accurate speed test!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here I would like to show you how I was able to run accurate speed test results on a multi-gigabit connection. While this article was written with our 2.5Gb and 10Gb customers in mind, a lot of this advice will apply to anyone who wants to get an accurate speed test, so feel free to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":6422,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[352,130,702,5,791],"tags":[794,789,788,795,574,736,793],"class_list":["post-6378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-system-administration","category-tech","category-technical-support","category-tips-helpful-information","category-xmission-labs","tag-calix","tag-gigabit-speeds","tag-multi-gigabit-speeds","tag-promised-speeds","tag-router","tag-speed-test","tag-speedtests"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xmission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xmission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xmission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xmission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xmission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6378"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/xmission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6436,"href":"https:\/\/xmission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6378\/revisions\/6436"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xmission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xmission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xmission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xmission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}