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Geppettvs D'Constanzo
Asked: 2020-03-13 13:20:18 +0800 CST

Why does my Network shows different speed in a Terminal and in the Browser?

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I have seen this question: Slow download speed in terminal and this one Different download speeds in Ifstat and Chrome and they are old, referring a different version of my current OS and/or related to a different thing.

My system:

  1. Laptop Dell inspiron 15 3000
  2. RAM: 16 GB
  3. SSD 480 GB Kingston
  4. Intel Core i3 7th Generation
  5. OS: Ubuntu 18.04 with Software and System Updates
  6. Web Browser: Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Palemoon. All latest.
  7. Terminal emulator: Yakuake, gnome-terminal.
  8. Other Terminal: TTY1
  9. Internet service provider connection speed: 100 Mbps (asymmetric)

My connection is showing different speed when running speed tests from terminal emulator, TTY and compared to what the speedtest.net page is showing on a web browser.

Screenshots here:

enter image description here

Firefox results on speedtest.net

enter image description here

Results on Yakuake, using the speedtest command in a terminal. TTY results are the same.

As you can see, the web browser shows I have 94.07 Mbps upload but the terminal shows only 4 Mbit/s.

Additional Questions

  1. The results I am receiving in the terminal are real or is the web browser the real speed on my computer?
  2. Is the terminal "locked" on the Internet speed?
  3. If the answer to the previous question is "Yes", how can I unlock it?
  4. If the answer to question 2 is "No", how can I make sure the web browser shows the real Internet connection speed?
  5. Is it there a difference between "Mbit/s" and "Mbps"?

I have noticed some low speed when downloading large files, but had no problem until today, when I noticed that big files are delaying a lot uploading. And after checking out my logs on one of my local computers, which automatically uploads large files to a web server, I can see it is taking a long time to upload the file.

If you need further information about my system or connection, please let me know.

download-speed

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    From the speedtest-cli repository:

    There is the potential for this tool to report results inconsistent with Speedtest.net. There are several concepts to be aware of that factor into the potential inconsistency:

    1. Speedtest.net has migrated to using pure socket tests instead of HTTP based tests
    2. This application is written in Python
    3. Different versions of Python will execute certain parts of the code faster than others
    4. CPU and Memory capacity and speed will play a large part in inconsistency between Speedtest.net and even other machines on the same network

Issues relating to inconsistencies will be closed as wontfix and without additional reason or context.

    So this is a known problem.

    Answers to a similar question at SuperUser seem to indicate that more recent versions (i.e. clone the Git repo and buid from there) are better but not yet perfect.

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