cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Speedtest causing over 600mb of data

slewin
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

I do not know if anyone else has had this issue.  I just added my phone to Public Mobile and wanted to test the mobile speed so I used the speedtest application and first it oddly showed 300mbps which should not be possible, but the second horror is that it used over 600mb on a single internet test.  I only have a 1GB plan, so this leaves me with less than 400mb for the whole month.

 

I have not contacted the people at speedtest yet, but I plan on doing that.  I do not know how a simple internet speed test would cause 600mb of data

21 REPLIES 21

nierth
Great Neighbour / Super Voisin

Yes generally speed tests use up a lot of data. I learned that firsthand before.

slewin
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Thank you @BearFBI for the info

BearFBI
Deputy Mayor / Adjoint au Maire

@slewin 3G will give you more bandwidth but slower speeds. The connection from you to the tower won't be as good. 3G has More ping, Jitter and packet loss. I find webpages load faster with 4G throttled than 3G. 

 

 

slewin
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Thanks gpixel4.  It looks like you got better speeds with the 3G over the 4G throttled.

slewin
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Oh, that is good advice @gpixel, thanks.  I am in Ontario and in eastern time, but still good to know.

@slewin here I did the speedtest for you for both LTE(throttled) and HSPA+3g

speedtest lte.jpeg

speedtest 3g.jpeg

yes they dont throttle the 3g. so if you really need faster download speeds, then you have the option to switch

slewin
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

True, in hindsight I would for sure have waited a week before doing the test @BearFBI.  Now I am scared to use it at all on my phone just in case and will probably delete the program.

slewin
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Okay, that makes sense @ShawnC13 as we are still using the Telus network, just throttled back if I got that right.

@amppm @slewin 

remember that PM is based on ET. just a warning that if you're living on the western part of Canada, your plan will renew a day earlier because of the time difference. be advised, if you have any data left and are planning to use it up before your next renewal

 

ie. renewal date is set for September. 22, your plan/data will renew

  • ET September 22 @ 12:00am
  • PT September 21 @ 9:00pm 

also your self serve process renewal will appear as "expired, suspended,active". I think the whole process takes about 9-10hours 

amppm
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

I made the same mistake

120 Mbps down / 60 up on LTE

 

Used up 223 MB 

BearFBI
Deputy Mayor / Adjoint au Maire

@slewin This happend to me too when I started. I used all my data. I got pretty good speeds though, 800Mbps Up and Down. I got good towers in my area and it helps that my Galaxy s10 has an amazing cellular modem. 

 

Lesson learned do not run speedtests on limited data plans. Wait 3 days untill the throttle kicks in then run the speedtest. It will only use a few MB of data.

@slewin yeah you have to be careful. Your speeds will be throttled after 2-3 days. Until then you have no restrictions. Under good conditions, you can use more than 1 GB on a single speed test.

 

I agree Ookla should warn people about the risk. Especially in Canada where unlimited plans are not prevalent.

Screenshot_20190214-202539.jpg

slewin
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Thanks @Anonymous and that makes complete sense.  I still think Ookla should warn people about potential data that could be used, even though I understand most people with really high bandwidth also have really high data.

Anonymous
Not applicable

It's nobody's "fault". It's how it works.

That initial ping test determines how much data it'll decide to send and receive. It sees a very low ping test and says oh ok here we go give'r.

The part you wouldn't've known was that on initial activation, Public Mobile gives you full LTE in all its glory. Then a couple days later it gets throttled down.


@slewin wrote:

The speed I got in the test was 336mbps down and 11 up and it does show as LTE.  I could not find a contact on the speedtest site, so I sent a private message to Ookla on Twitter which is the people that run it.


@slewin, it will always show LTE or 4G if that is the network it is connected to but PM then throttles it down.   You can always manually select to only connect 3G if you wish.

 


I am happy to help, but I am not a Customer Support Agent please do not include any personal info in a message to me. Click HERE to create a trouble ticket through SIMon the Chatbot *

slewin
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

The speed I got in the test was 336mbps down and 11 up and it does show as LTE.  I could not find a contact on the speedtest site, so I sent a private message to Ookla on Twitter which is the people that run it.

slewin
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Thank you @geopublic at least this answers why the speed showed so high.  I must admit I never knew LTE could go that fast, scary.  I will be happier when it throttles back.

slewin
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Thank you @gblackma.  I will try to live with the remaining data for the month if I can as I am pretty good with using less, but if I find I can not I will go by your suggestion.

geopublic
Mayor / Maire

@slewin wrote:

I do not know if anyone else has had this issue.  I just added my phone to Public Mobile and wanted to test the mobile speed so I used the speedtest application and first it oddly showed 300mbps which should not be possible, but the second horror is that it used over 600mb on a single internet test.  I only have a 1GB plan, so this leaves me with less than 400mb for the whole month.

 

I have not contacted the people at speedtest yet, but I plan on doing that.  I do not know how a simple internet speed test would cause 600mb of data


@slewin  Big no no!! When you first sign-up with PM your data will run on full LTE until it gets throttled to LTE lite (3-5 Mbps) which will take up to a week to kick in.

gblackma
Mayor / Maire

@slewin initially when you activate it takes a little while for the throttling to come into effect. What speed did you get? Thanks. And now you can look into getting a 1 gigabyte data add on for $15. Stay safe. 

Triguy
Mayor / Maire

It is never recommended to do a speed test on a mobile data connection because it uses alot of data.

Need Help? Let's chat.