Know How
Easy when you
74 Next issue: Robert tries to protect all his devices with Microsoft Defender
Need help with comparing internet speeds in
your neighbourhood?
Let us know: [email protected]Fing was quick to
reveal Robert’s
download speed
but its upload figure
was ridiculously
highRobert got more relevant data about internet speeds
from Broadband Speedcheckerthrough, which - spoiler alert! - never
happened, I nosed around the rest of the
program for potentially useful
information. On the Internet tab, I found
an intriguing Scoreboard button, which
showed me a table of the fastest ISPs in
Scotland. Hyperoptic topped the table
with a mighty download speed of
268Mbps, while Sky languished in 11th
place. I then clicked ‘Compare providers’
on the Home tab, which told me that my
speed performance was in the bottom 40
per cent of Sky users in Scotland. I was
really hoping for more specific details
than this – and for a country I actually
live in – so I decided to give Fing the
finger and look elsewhere.
The best alternative tool I found was on
a website called Broadband Speedchecker
(www.snipca.com/41649), which lets you
enter your postcode to see internet speeds
from different providers in your area,
based on tests from the past six months.
Although it didn’t reveal broadband
statistics for my near-neighbours, it did
suggest that other Sky users in my
borough were reporting slower speeds
than me (see screenshot left), while
Virgin Media subscribers had connections
more than three times as fast.
As for Fing Desktop’s failure to deliver
on its promise, and its insistence on
providing Scottish information, I guess
Fings ain’t wot they used t’be.11 – 24 May 2022 • Issue 631Compare his broadband speed
Wondering if his neighbours enjoy faster internet
than him, Robert Irvine tries to...
E
verybody needs good neighbours,
goes the theme tune of a recently
axed Australian soap opera. Mine
are mostly fine and non-intrusive in a
nod-hello-and-keep-walking way, but I
sometimes feel envious that their flats are
nicer than mine, with oak front doors,
proper gardens and uPVC windows. And
I bet they have faster broadband
connections, too.A new feature in a network-scanning
tool called Fing (www.fing.com)
promised to let me find out, by “analysing
and comparing internet service
providers” in my area. I downloaded the
free Fing Desktop tool from http://www.snipca.
com/41630, installed and ran it, then
signed in using my Google account.
On the Home screen, I saw that Fing
already knew a few ‘fings’ about my
broadband connection, including the
make of my laptop, my IP address,
that I was in London and that my
internet provider is Sky (it’s actually
Now Broadband, which is owned by
Sky, but let’s not split hairs).
However, I did wonder why Fing
thought my ISP was located in
Tillicoultry, a Scottish village in the
Ochil foothills of Clackmannanshire,
more than 400 miles from my
London home. Perhaps Sky was on a
camping trip.
Eager to get down to business, I
clicked the ‘Start speed test’ buttonand Fing quickly determined my download
speed to be 35.2Mbps and my upload
speed as 4,819Mbps (see screenshot
above). The latter seemed ridiculously
high, so I assume a decimal point had
gone astray. It also reported that my ‘ping’
(the time data takes to reach a test server)
was 6ms (milliseconds) and my ‘jitter’
(the delay in sending data packets) was
0.9ms, with a zero per cent packet loss,
which was nice. Usefully, Fing suggests
“what you can achieve” with a
connection of your speed, by rating
different internet activities out of five. I
scored top marks for everything except
streaming Ultra HD 4K video, which
didn’t overly concern me.
I was more interested to discover how
my broadband speed compared with that
of my neighbours, but frustratingly Fing
told me it didn’t yet have enough data to
make the comparison. Not prepared to
wait seven days for more results to filterI was hoping for more
specific details, and for
a country I actually
live in