speedtest

Tools to Test and Compare Internet Bandwidth Speeds

Description

The ‘Ookla’ ‘Speedtest’ site http://beta.speedtest.net/about provides interactive and programmatic services to test and compare bandwidth speeds from a source node on the Internet to thousands of test servers. Tools are provided to obtain test server lists, identify target servers for testing and performing speed/bandwidth tests.

What’s Inside The Tin

The following functions are implemented:

• spd_best_servers: Find “best” servers (latency-wise) from master server list
• spd_closest_servers: Find “closest” servers (geography-wise) from master server list
• spd_compute_bandwidth: Compute bandwidth from bytes transferred and time taken
• spd_config: Retrieve client configuration information for the speedtest
• spd_download_test: Perform a download speed/bandwidth test
• spd_servers: Retrieve a list of SpeedTest servers
• spd_upload_test: Perform an upload speed/bandwidth test
• spd_test: Test your internet speed/bandwidth

Make a CLI utility

While you can run spd_test() from an R console, it was desgined to be an easily wrapped into a bash (et al) alias or put into a small batch script. Or, you can just type out the following if you’re fleet-of-finger/have dexterous digits:

Rscript --quiet -e 'speedtest::spd_test()'

which will look something like:

TODO

Folks interested in contributing can take a look at the TODOs and pick as many as you like! Ones with question marks are truly a “I dunno if we shld” kinda thing. Ones with exclamation marks are essentials.

• Cache config in memory at startup vs pass around to functions?
• Figure out how to use beta sockets hidden API vs the old Flash API?
• Ensure the efficacy of relying on the cURL timings for speed measures for the Flash API
• Figure out best way to capture the results for post-processing
• Upload results to speedtest (tis only fair)!
• Incorporate more network or host measures for better statistical determination of the best target!
• autoplot support!
• RStudio Add-in
• Shiny app?

Installation

devtools::install_github("hrbrmstr/speedtest")

options(width=120)

Usage

library(speedtest)
library(stringi)
library(hrbrthemes)
library(ggbeeswarm)
library(tidyverse)

# current verison
packageVersion("speedtest")

## [1] '0.1.0'

Download Speed

config <- spd_config()

servers <- spd_servers(config=config)
closest_servers <- spd_closest_servers(servers, config=config)
only_the_best_severs <- spd_best_servers(closest_servers, config)

Individual download tests

glimpse(spd_download_test(closest_servers[1,], config=config))

## Observations: 1
## Variables: 15
## $ url     <chr> "http://speed0.xcelx.net/speedtest/upload.php"
## $ lat     <dbl> 42.3875
## $ lng     <dbl> -71.1
## $ name    <chr> "Somerville, MA"
## $ country <chr> "United States"
## $ cc      <chr> "US"
## $ sponsor <chr> "Axcelx Technologies LLC"
## $ id      <chr> "5960"
## $ host    <chr> "speed0.xcelx.net:8080"
## $ url2    <chr> "http://speed1.xcelx.net/speedtest/upload.php"
## $ min     <dbl> 14.40439
## $ mean    <dbl> 60.06834
## $ median  <dbl> 55.28457
## $ max     <dbl> 127.9436
## $ sd      <dbl> 34.20695

glimpse(spd_download_test(only_the_best_severs[1,], config=config))

## Observations: 1
## Variables: 18
## $ ping_time      <dbl> 0.02712567
## $ total_time     <dbl> 0.059917
## $ retrieval_time <dbl> 2.3e-05
## $ url            <chr> "http://speed0.xcelx.net/speedtest/upload.php"
## $ lat            <dbl> 42.3875
## $ lng            <dbl> -71.1
## $ name           <chr> "Somerville, MA"
## $ country        <chr> "United States"
## $ cc             <chr> "US"
## $ sponsor        <chr> "Axcelx Technologies LLC"
## $ id             <chr> "5960"
## $ host           <chr> "speed0.xcelx.net:8080"
## $ url2           <chr> "http://speed1.xcelx.net/speedtest/upload.php"
## $ min            <dbl> 14.64922
## $ mean           <dbl> 56.15303
## $ median         <dbl> 51.89162
## $ max            <dbl> 107.5084
## $ sd             <dbl> 31.8866

Individual upload tests

glimpse(spd_upload_test(only_the_best_severs[1,], config=config))

## Observations: 1
## Variables: 18
## $ ping_time      <dbl> 0.02712567
## $ total_time     <dbl> 0.059917
## $ retrieval_time <dbl> 2.3e-05
## $ url            <chr> "http://speed0.xcelx.net/speedtest/upload.php"
## $ lat            <dbl> 42.3875
## $ lng            <dbl> -71.1
## $ name           <chr> "Somerville, MA"
## $ country        <chr> "United States"
## $ cc             <chr> "US"
## $ sponsor        <chr> "Axcelx Technologies LLC"
## $ id             <chr> "5960"
## $ host           <chr> "speed0.xcelx.net:8080"
## $ url2           <chr> "http://speed1.xcelx.net/speedtest/upload.php"
## $ min            <dbl> 6.240858
## $ mean           <dbl> 9.527599
## $ median         <dbl> 9.303148
## $ max            <dbl> 12.56686
## $ sd             <dbl> 2.451778

glimpse(spd_upload_test(closest_servers[1,], config=config))

## Observations: 1
## Variables: 15
## $ url     <chr> "http://speed0.xcelx.net/speedtest/upload.php"
## $ lat     <dbl> 42.3875
## $ lng     <dbl> -71.1
## $ name    <chr> "Somerville, MA"
## $ country <chr> "United States"
## $ cc      <chr> "US"
## $ sponsor <chr> "Axcelx Technologies LLC"
## $ id      <chr> "5960"
## $ host    <chr> "speed0.xcelx.net:8080"
## $ url2    <chr> "http://speed1.xcelx.net/speedtest/upload.php"
## $ min     <dbl> 6.764702
## $ mean    <dbl> 9.896179
## $ median  <dbl> 10.3605
## $ max     <dbl> 12.85389
## $ sd      <dbl> 2.359868

Moar download tests

Choose closest, “best” and randomly (there can be, and are, some dups as a result for best/closest), run the test and chart the results. This will show just how disparate the results are from these core/crude tests. Most of the test servers compensate when they present the results. Newer, “socket”-based tests are more accurate but there are no free/hidden exposed APIs yet for most of them.

set.seed(8675309)

bind_rows(

  closest_servers[1:3,] %>%
    mutate(type="closest"),

  only_the_best_severs[1:3,] %>%
    mutate(type="best"),

  filter(servers, !(id %in% c(closest_servers[1:3,]$id, only_the_best_severs[1:3,]$id))) %>%
    sample_n(3) %>%
    mutate(type="random")

) %>%
  group_by(type) %>%
  ungroup() -> to_compare

select(to_compare, sponsor, name, country, host, type)

## # A tibble: 9 x 5
##                   sponsor            name       country
##                     <chr>           <chr>         <chr>
## 1 Axcelx Technologies LLC  Somerville, MA United States
## 2                 Comcast      Boston, MA United States
## 3            Starry, Inc.      Boston, MA United States
## 4 Axcelx Technologies LLC  Somerville, MA United States
## 5 Norwood Light Broadband     Norwood, MA United States
## 6       CCI - New England  Providence, RI United States
## 7                 PirxNet         Gliwice        Poland
## 8           Interoute VDC Los Angeles, CA United States
## 9                   UNPAD         Bandung     Indonesia
## # ... with 2 more variables: host <chr>, type <chr>

map_df(1:nrow(to_compare), ~{
  spd_download_test(to_compare[.x,], config=config, summarise=FALSE, timeout=30)
}) -> dl_results_full

mutate(dl_results_full, type=stri_trans_totitle(type)) %>%
  ggplot(aes(type, bw, fill=type)) +
  geom_quasirandom(aes(size=size, color=type), width=0.15, shape=21, stroke=0.25) +
  scale_y_continuous(expand=c(0,5), labels=c(sprintf("%s", seq(0,150,50)), "200 Mb/s"), limits=c(0,200)) +
  scale_size(range=c(2,6)) +
  scale_color_manual(values=c(Random="#b2b2b2", Best="#2b2b2b", Closest="#2b2b2b")) +
  scale_fill_ipsum() +
  labs(x=NULL, y=NULL, title="Download bandwidth test by selected server type",
       subtitle="Circle size scaled by size of file used in that speed test") +
  theme_ipsum_rc(grid="Y") +
  theme(legend.position="none")

Moar upload tests

Choose closest and “best” and filter duplicates out since we’re really trying to measure here vs show the disparity:

bind_rows(
  closest_servers[1:3,] %>% mutate(type="closest"),
  only_the_best_severs[1:3,] %>% mutate(type="best")
) %>%
  distinct(.keep_all=TRUE) -> to_compare

select(to_compare, sponsor, name, country, host, type)

## # A tibble: 6 x 5
##                   sponsor           name       country
##                     <chr>          <chr>         <chr>
## 1 Axcelx Technologies LLC Somerville, MA United States
## 2                 Comcast     Boston, MA United States
## 3            Starry, Inc.     Boston, MA United States
## 4 Axcelx Technologies LLC Somerville, MA United States
## 5 Norwood Light Broadband    Norwood, MA United States
## 6       CCI - New England Providence, RI United States
## # ... with 2 more variables: host <chr>, type <chr>

map_df(1:nrow(to_compare), ~{
  spd_upload_test(to_compare[.x,], config=config, summarise=FALSE, timeout=30)
}) -> ul_results_full

ggplot(ul_results_full, aes(x="Upload Test", y=bw)) +
  geom_quasirandom(aes(size=size, fill="col"), width=0.1, shape=21, stroke=0.25, color="#2b2b2b") +
  scale_y_continuous(expand=c(0,0.5), breaks=seq(0,16,4),
                     labels=c(sprintf("%s", seq(0,12,4)), "16 Mb/s"), limits=c(0,16)) +
  scale_size(range=c(2,6)) +
  scale_fill_ipsum() +
  labs(x=NULL, y=NULL, title="Upload bandwidth test by selected server type",
       subtitle="Circle size scaled by size of file used in that speed test") +
  theme_ipsum_rc(grid="Y") +
  theme(legend.position="none")

Code of Conduct

Please note that this project is released with a Contributor Code of Conduct. By participating in this project you agree to abide by its terms.