This afternoon a co-worker saw my Telstra NextG 21Mbps USB Stick pertruding out of my Dell XPS Laptop. Keen to see how close it got to the maximum theoretical download speed so blatantly displayed on the device, he asked me to jump onto Speedtest.net.
What is Speedtest.net?
For those who haven’t tried Speedtest.net before, it’s a handy little website that measures download speed, upload speed and latency – perfect for testing your internet connection.
Here’s the result of the test:
Despite just reaching over half the advertised theoretical max, a download speed of 10.89 Mb/s is actually very fast, especially comparing to the results of other carriers. I know with Vodafone’s offering I was only able to achieve maximums of around 2Mb/s.
Telstra Not Cheap But Damn Fast
Now before you zoom off to get a Telstra NextG stick I would recommend that you first check out their plans here. Compared to the other carriers in Australia, they’re the most expensive, but you get what you pay for i.e. better coverage and speed. I’m currently on the Telstra BigPond Liberty® 5GB for $89.95 per month. If you thought this is expensive, 2 years ago I was paying the same price for only 1GB of data per month!
My only other major gripe with the Telstra connection (price being the biggest by far) is how fast it gets hot and as a result may disconnect. If they find a way to keep this thing cool, I’m confident that connections would be far more persistent and stable.
So, which carrier are you using? How fast can you get using Speedtest.net?
I’m keen to know who’s got the fastest Wireless Broadband connection 
