ERC provides this Speed Testing tool for measuring an approximation of the performance rate of internet services provided by ERC Broadband. It is based on HTML5, and is designed for testing “Carrier-grade Ethernet”. This test provides a significantly more “accurate” result than similar “consumer” type speed testing designed for DSL or cable-modems.
ERC provides this tool as a ‘estimation’ of overall bandwidth. Numerous factors – beyond ERC”s control – can affect your results. Including concurrent usage by other users, background tasks on the testing computer, memory size and processor capabilities, internal network configuration, internal network congestion, firewall performance throughput, packet inspection, etc.
All testing of ERC services must be over hard-wired connections. Using wireless, during testing, is not recommended. Testing over a wireless connection is highly affected by the wireless performance, and results may not accurately reflect the underlying Carrier-grade Ethernet services by ERC.
Recommendations for Testing
- ERC highly recommends testing using the Google Chrome browser (latest version), and specifically calls out Internet Explorer as not suitable for speed testing.
- ERC would also recommend customers confirm their firewall/routers are properly configured, specifically to conform to the subscribed speed. Check your documentation on how to properly perform this configuration. The needed setting may be called “Traffic Shaping”, “ISP Bandwidth”, “Interface Bandwidth”, or similar.
- ERC always recommends using commercial-class equipment in your network. Consumer-grade equipment may be detrimental to your performance. All firewalls, routers, access-points, intrusion detection, DDoS detection and similar devices — all require sufficient throughput to support the full bandwidth offered by ERC
Further Testing
For detailed troubleshooting, or to perform the most accurate testing – a single connection from a laptop directly into the ERC switch is recommended. This assists the customer in removing all internal influences on testing speed. Please contact us if you need assistance in performing this test. Customers will need to ensure that speed and duplex, as well as IP addressing information – all are correctly set before performing a direct-to-ERC’s-port test.
For customers wishing to perform more extensive testing or over a longer period of time, ERC recommends the open-source tool “IPERF” for testing between two locations, across the ERC internet service.