racoma.com.phJ. Angelo Racoma on technology, economics, writing, problogging, and getting things done

Okay, so I tried testing the approximate speed of my SkyDSL connection last night via speakeasy speedtest. I got 543 Kbps down and 479 Kbps up. But that’s in the middle of the night, with everyone on their ZZZ’s. I was probably sharing the pipes with only a handful of other night-owls and zombies.

And I think I forgot to turn off the http proxy access on my browser.

I tried testing again just around two this afternoon, and here’s what I got. With proxy disabled, I got a download speed of 508 Kbps and upload speed of 222 Kbps.

I then activated the Sky DSL Proxy (http://proxy.skyinet.net:3128) and got these results: 500 Kbps down and 448 Kbps up.

So the download speed plays around 500 Kbps–pretty close to the 512 Kbps the published data rate. Understandably, upload speeds are slower, but in this case I was surprised it even surpassed the 200 Kbps mark (upload speeds are usually less than half or even less than 20% of the download speed). And with the http proxy, it’s likely that the proxy server’s upload speed is faster, hence attaining the near-500 Kbps rate for upstream transfers.

Not bad.

Of course, the speeds are only estimates, but then again, I would say such tests are a good proxy of how fast your connection really is.

I think this is something Smart WiFi (now branded Smart Bro) users should try.

Update: As of May 2007, Bayantel / Sky DSL has been reportedly really slow. I’ve experienced this myself, and I’ve published a copy of an email I sent to Bayantel CSR here:

Bayantel / Sky DSL is Really Slow These Days