I've been using this speed-test:

www.speedtest.net/

and have been getting download speed of 0.3Mbps and upload speed of 0.1Mbps, at both my old and new apartments.

This is beyond pathetic, not in the least because I have the 118-rmb/month "3M" (=3Mbps) "service" with China Telecrap.

Please do the test (a few times at different times of day would be best, as sometime you get higher or lower than normal speeds momentarily) and post the results.

I'd especially be curious to see if other providers (Unicom?) are any better.

I asked a student in a Chenggong dorm to do the test, as she always complains about how unbelievably slow their internet is. I thought, figures, school takes their tuition and gives them crap internet and cramped dorm-rooms in return. But she got 5M download speed!

If anybody knows anything about getting internets faster than a 1994 dial-up, I'd be much obliged for the info.

Best,
n

1.71 down and 0.38 up. also on China Telecom.

3.68 mbps down and .25 mbps up

there's very little point in measuring using an overseas speedtest as the GFW slows everything down.

When China Telecom advertises a speed that is the max speed between your house and their Kunming gateway and even that will vary according to many factors. They don't promise anything beyond that.

If you want to test go to www.linkwan.net and choose Kunming.

"Fast' is not a word I would use when discussing ADSL around here. Not worth discussing at all really because you'll enter Alice in Wonderland territory. After a short conversation with an 'engineer' you doubt anything you ever learnt about connectivity before you dropped down the rabbit hole. Protect your sanity and start training pigeons or go visit the new Starbucks in Si Mao...... Pu'erh (soon to be changed to Pu'Bucks). The latter offers free Wi-fi for anyone carrying their own toadstool during the grand opening in the beginning of April.

I'm generally happy with my connection but it's nowhere near the advertized speed.

Where we live the problem is the pipe in the development. It is too small. They lacked vision when they built it.

We wanted to pay extra for a commercial service. China Telecom refused to sell it to us, as our local infrastructure is not up to it.

NB
There is also China Unicom, another provider. I doubt if they are any better as there is no real competition in this market.

"Speedtest" is nowhere near reliable right now. Depending on the server I am as slow as 0.18 mbps whereas in real life I usually achieve download speeds of 610 KB/s. That's fast and exactly what was advertised.

Another story is the response time, called Ping. It is very high here in China which makes the connection feel really slow.

I also hear from my friends that their modems switch off because they loose the ADSL signal which is the result of bad phone lines in the building or a broken switch for the area.

WHY SO SLOW or WHY SO FAST?
ADSL - which is what most people use - speed differs depending on distance from the main telephone line switching station. Chenggong should be faster as it's NEW and the switching station is VERY CLOSE to the university campuses. The general rule goes - if you're about 1km from the switching station - you'll get top speed. Connection speed then falls off about 1/r-squared - where r is the distance from the station.

Other things that affect ADSL speed is the age of the copper wires used to connect you to the switching station - chenggong is ALL NEW. Older places vary but you should expect crappy connections the older the building or neighborhood.

FYI - Japan has 80+mbps ADSL and also fiber to the home aka FTTH - Speeds vary from 100mbps to 1gps.

Internet speed is usually quoted as a total (another marketing LIE). When an operator quotes 1mbps - they usually mean something like 768k down and 128k+ up (1mbps = 1024k).

And FINALLY - right now in China - and EVERY year around Jan-Mar, the great firewall and sophisticated government networking goes up - has to do with the annual reports in Beijing and this year is special - the next FIVE YEAR PLAN (or the new kinder friendlier pc term, guidance/guidelines).

Most of your connections here are going through government filters FIRST, then out to the internet. It's usually transparent - but internet traffic is heavy as mobile phone 3G internet usage and computers proliferate. Only three carriers are currently allowed pipes out of the country - they're now also the same as the 3G operators.

Also - if you live in high density housing - where LOTS of people have ADSL - you're sharing pipe with all of them. If you have network sniffing/mapping software, you'd be AMAZED at all the people's computers or routers you can see - VERY unsecure...fyi.

My $0.02.

Bucko - I hate you (internet speed envy)...

LOL laotou. And that test was to a Xiamen server.
But actually this is a good as it gets (sometimes)