Monitor Net Traffic

[Derek Broughton]

Mark Haney wrote:

> John Hubbard wrote:
>> Here is my problem;  I want to know what kind of bandwidth my isp is
>> really giving me.  I have looked at a few different speed tests and I
>> get different results from them, and they often seem far faster than
>> what I actually get.  Now I realize that the bottle neck might be coming
>> from whoever is serving the content, but I am not sure.
>> So the question is; is there any way to generate any kind of report of
>> my bandwidth?  I only care about how fast I am able to get data when I
>> am trying to download it.  Often the connection is not being used at all
>> and I don't want to factor that in.
>> Any thoughts?
>> 
> 
> I deal with this a lot, working for a regional ISP.  The problem with
> most speed test sites is that they preload (some not all) the file they
> use to test (be it an image or whatever) to exaggerate the results. 

Exaggerate?  It's just common sense.  If the file isn't preloaded, you're
testing server speed as well as network speed.  You want to reduce as much
as possible any effect the server has on the connection.

> This 
> has been a common problem I've seen over the last few years.
> 
> It's been our choice to have a ftp server sitting on our end of the
> network and have the customer ftp down various size empty files to test
> the bandwidth used.

Which is certainly a fine test of the combination of your network and your
FTP server - all ISPs should offer such service.

<smart-ass comment>of course, empty files can't really have different
sizes</smart-ass comment>
-- 
derek