Slow speed result with SpeedTest test

SpeedTest selects your speed-test server based on your VPS or dedicated server's IP address GeoLocation.

At times, your VPSes physical location may NOT match with the GeoLocation (which is set on the IP address), in these cases, SpeedTest auto selects a server that may be far away from your existing VPSes physical location, which then results in a wrong/incorrect result.

Installing SpeedTest CLI on your Linux Server

Speedtest now has official apps CLI available for running speedtests [https://www.speedtest.net/apps/cli]

CentOS / Alma Linux / RockyLinux

For installation on CentOS or Alma Linux or RockyLinux, run the following command,

curl -s https://install.speedtest.net/app/cli/install.rpm.sh | sudo bash
sudo yum install speedtest

Ubuntu / Debian

For installation on Ubuntu or Debian, run the following command,

sudo apt-get install curl
curl -s https://packagecloud.io/install/repositories/ookla/speedtest-cli/script.deb.sh | sudo bash
sudo apt-get install speedtest

In this example,

VPS "LA" is located in Los Angeles, California, but when looking up in SpeedTest for servers in Los Angeles, we see the distance as 3800+ KM! This is due to the GeoLocation of the VPSes IP address.

If your VPS / Server IP is not GeoLocated correctly to the physical location of the service, we can change the IP for free to another IP which is GeoLocated correctly. GeoLocation of the VPS / Server IP does NOT affect its speed or its ping in reality!

Next, we run a test with server #19230,

root@vps:~# speedtest --server-id=19230

   Speedtest by Ookla

      Server: Hivelocity - Los Angeles, CA (id: 19230)
         ISP: QuadraNet
Idle Latency:     0.73 ms   (jitter: 0.02ms, low: 0.72ms, high: 0.79ms)
    Download:   894.97 Mbps (data used: 415.2 MB)
                  4.29 ms   (jitter: 0.46ms, low: 1.41ms, high: 5.51ms)
      Upload:   893.88 Mbps (data used: 403.8 MB)
                  2.97 ms   (jitter: 0.27ms, low: 0.81ms, high: 3.87ms)
 Packet Loss:     0.0%
  Result URL: https://www.speedtest.net/result/c/a92c7414-7620-448a-b42b-4206f174dde7

and with server #18857,

root@vps:~# speedtest --server-id=18857

   Speedtest by Ookla

      Server: BAI Connect - Los Angeles, CA (id: 18857)
         ISP: QuadraNet
Idle Latency:     0.70 ms   (jitter: 0.09ms, low: 0.63ms, high: 0.81ms)
    Download:   888.90 Mbps (data used: 401.4 MB)
                  4.43 ms   (jitter: 0.42ms, low: 0.93ms, high: 5.26ms)
      Upload:   884.69 Mbps (data used: 399.5 MB)
                  2.93 ms   (jitter: 0.44ms, low: 1.51ms, high: 6.38ms)
 Packet Loss: Not available.
  Result URL: https://www.speedtest.net/result/c/300b9226-c6f9-403c-962f-9dbf4888b028

You can check the servers list using following command,

speedtest --servers

Output:

 Closest servers:

    ID  Name                           Location             Country
==============================================================================
 60433  GeoLinks                       Los Angeles, CA      United States
 14236  Frontier                       Los Angeles, CA      United States
 17527  Race Communications            Los Angeles, CA      United States
 12191  Nitel                          Los Angeles, CA      United States
 18401  Windstream                     Los Angeles, CA      United States
 17249  Wiline Networks                Los Angeles, CA      United States
 37498  Netprotect                     Los Angeles, CA      United States
 22736  Inyo Networks Inc              Los Angeles, CA      United States
  9916  fdcservers.net                 Los Angeles, CA      United States
 34840  ReliableSite Hosting           Los Angeles, CA      United States

Now, in both these cases with speedtest, we get around 930 - 790 Mbps.

Next, Let's run a wget based CacheFly speedtest file, here, we notice 94.4 MB/s (940 Mbps!),

[root@la ~]# wget -O /dev/null http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test
--2018-02-06 11:22:46--  http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test
Resolving cachefly.cachefly.net (cachefly.cachefly.net)... 205.234.175.175
Connecting to cachefly.cachefly.net (cachefly.cachefly.net)|205.234.175.175|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 104857600 (100M) [application/octet-stream]
Saving to: ‘/dev/null’

100%[=================================>] 104,857,600 94.4MB/s   in 1.1s

2018-02-06 11:22:47 (94.4 MB/s) - ‘/dev/null’ saved [104857600/104857600]

How to find speedtest servers in your VPSes location:

With earlier versions of speedtest-cli, it was possible to use a simple grep to find a list of servers for a certain region, but this is slightly different in the newer official SpeedTest CLI app,

We've listed a few server IDs for each region we provide our services out of, these IDs can be used to then apply into the below command,

speedtest --server-id=<Server-ID>

Replace <Server-ID> with the ID from the list below.

For example,

[root@lax ~]# speedtest --server-id=18857

   Speedtest by Ookla

     Server: BAI Connect - Los Angeles, CA (id = 18857)
        ISP: QuadraNet
    Latency:     0.44 ms   (0.08 ms jitter)
   Download:   937.12 Mbps (data used: 422.4 MB )
     Upload:   936.80 Mbps (data used: 421.3 MB )

Speedtest servers for Los Angeles, California, USA

speedtest --servers

Output:

    ID  Name                           Location             Country
==============================================================================
 60433  GeoLinks                       Los Angeles, CA      United States
 14236  Frontier                       Los Angeles, CA      United States
 17527  Race Communications            Los Angeles, CA      United States
 12191  Nitel                          Los Angeles, CA      United States
 18401  Windstream                     Los Angeles, CA      United States
 17249  Wiline Networks                Los Angeles, CA      United States
 37498  Netprotect                     Los Angeles, CA      United States
 22736  Inyo Networks Inc              Los Angeles, CA      United States
  9916  fdcservers.net                 Los Angeles, CA      United States
 34840  ReliableSite Hosting           Los Angeles, CA      United States

Speedtest servers for Atlanta, Georgia, USA

speedtest --servers

Output:

    ID  Name                           Location             Country
==============================================================================
 20794  IdeaTek Telcom                 Hutchinson, KS       United States
 16623  Cox - Wichita                  Wichita, KS          United States
 20531  Kansas Research and Education Network Wichita, KS          United States
 54464  Ideatek Telcom                 Wichita, KS          United States
 61172  USA Connections                Wellington, KS       United States
 45720  Mutual Telephone Company       McPherson, KS        United States
 45324  Home Communications Inc.       Galva, KS            United States
 38012  SCTelcom                       Medicine Lodge, KS   United States
 22144  H&B Communications             Holyrood, KS         United States
 17295  Haviland Broadband             Haviland, KS         United States

Speedtest servers for Frankfurt, Germany

speedtest --servers

Output:

    ID  Name                           Location             Country
==============================================================================
 32298  SYNLINQ                        Frankfurt am Main    Germany
 37567  Netprotect                     Frankfurt            Germany
 44081  23M GmbH                       Frankfurt am Main    Germany
 53257  LWLcom GmbH                    Frankfurt            Germany
 40094  PVDataNet                      Frankfurt            Germany
 55462  Twerion.net | Minecraft Server Frankfurt            Germany
 10010  fdcservers.net                 Frankfurt            Germany
 37492  Melbicom                       Frankfurt            Germany
 54504  Deutsche Glasfaser             Frankfurt            Germany
 46569  wirsNET                        Frankfurt            Germany

Speedtest servers for Amsterdam, The Netherlands

speedtest --servers

Output:

    ID  Name                           Location             Country
==============================================================================
 28922  PhoenixNAP Global IT Services  Amsterdam            Netherlands
 52365  Odido                          Amsterdam            Netherlands
 23094  31173 Services AB              Amsterdam            Netherlands
 54151  Labixe Ltd                     Amsterdam            Netherlands
 30847  Claranet Benelux B.V.          Amsterdam            Netherlands
 35058  Clouvider Ltd                  Amsterdam            Netherlands
 11611  KamaTera, Inc.                 Amsterdam            Netherlands
  9913  fdcservers.net                 Amsterdam            Netherlands
 33814  dstny                          Amsterdam            Netherlands
 45549  NewsXS B.V.                    Amsterdam            Netherlands

Speedtest servers for Miami, Florida

speedtest --servers

Output:

    ID  Name                           Location             Country
==============================================================================
 35678  Gold Data                      Miami, FL            United States
 22361  Hivelocity                     Miami, FL            United States
 35867  Ufinet                         Miami, FL            United States
 50378  KamaTera, Inc.                 Miami, FL            United States
 45442  NetPlus - Intercom Services    Miami, FL            United States
 57161  Blue Stream Fiber              Jacksonville, FL     United States
 14237  Frontier                       Miami, FL            United States
 37499  Netprotect                     Miami, FL            United States
 47746  AT&T                           Miami, FL            United States
  4848  Hotwire Fision                 Miami, FL            United States

With this we can now conclude the following,

  1. Speedtest result also depends on the how "loaded" the test server (in above example, --server 5861 and --server 7456) also is.
  2. CacheFly test must be done to confirm speed as well to see if any issues exist

If you get LOW speeds with CacheFly test + SpeedTest test, please contact us right away and we will fix the issue!