I have just had a new cable laid for my Broadband - TV - Telephone connection here in the UK. The engineer who did the job told me I should notice a difference in speed and gave me the Speedtest Address to test my service on. I pay for an up to 2Meg connection speed. Not being very PC literate could someone tell me if the results posted below are good or bad?. Thanks in advance for any replies.

Hello bluesjunior,

I too use Virgin media however I'm on an 8MB connection. I have used the same speed test and the results returned were in a similar ratio.

Are you having trouble with your connection?

I had been nigglesnush85.
They have been out to repair my system twice in the last two weeks. The guy last week said I was losing a lot of signal between the street box and my PC, a distance of 100yds or so and so he ordered a "Repull" the term they use for the relaying of a new cable for this morning. When they had finished they told me the problem had been that whoever laid the original cable had put down an analogue one which they used with the old black boxes but should have been replaced when they put in the new blue, Ethernet Cable modems. He said I should expect faster download times and gave me the address in the OP and told me to try it but I am not sure if the results are good or bad for a 2MB connection. It would seem to be ok if you are getting comparable with an 8MB.

If they have re done the cables twice they must have fixed the original problem. for added piece of mind you can try another speed test http://www.internetfrog.com/index.asp

The download rates are are usually a lot faster than the upload speeds.

Also this, very serious, non-commercial, no popups, no trash - TCP/Web100 Network Diagnostic Tool v5.3.4e
from http://miranda.ctd.anl.gov:7123/
and you can see the Details report in addition to the short report, and give it to your ISP to look at if there are still problems.

Finally, the old tracert command might show where, over all the hops, there's the big delay, if such exists.

Thanks for the replies.

Tos226, I did the test on the link you supplied and bookmarked it as well. Results were ok and I understood it all except where it said:
Information : Packet queuing detected.

I googled it but can't make head nor tail of the answers. What is packet queuing exactly and is it good or bad news?.

Using DSL I had slow speeds and disconnect at various times. I got the most up to date cable and installed it from the box on the side of the house to my computer. Got my speed back and no more disconnects. A lot of homes have 15 + years old telephone wires still installed. I also found a faulty surge protector; replaced it.

I'm not an expert on those things. But to me packet queuing means that somewhere between you and another place is a bottleneck. So the communication which should flow smoothly packet by packet by packet are getting stuck and released to/from you as things open up. I imagine it like standing in a que at the checkout counter where every person is a packet.

Packets are how all data is transmitted. A big file or a webpage is broken up into tiny pieces, 1500 characters or so. And packets are numbered so they get put into correct sequence at the receiving end.

Try running tracert from the command prompt. Timing might tell you where things get stuck.
Something like tracert maidenheadServer or google or whatever -- just use the correct name or IP address