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Is this actually true, though?

To figure that out, you'd need to do a speed test to the target host, then do another one while simultaneously running Speedtest.

Your Internet speed is also affected by the peering agreements your ISP has, i.e. how "well connected" it is to the ISP of your target host. Speedtest targets (and Fast.com) are pretty well-connected; i.e. they have a lot of peers, so you can get to them in relatively few hops. Many times, they're even run by your ISP, so the number of hops is minimal.

I've noticed there's a big difference in both bandwidth and latency based on the network my requests actually go out on (from my university Internet connection). For some reason, the Univ. of Cal. Network > Commercial ISP > Internet2. (Not sure why Internet2 sucks so much, but it seems really slow for some reason.)



I've observed this effect as well. For example, on wifi at a conference hotel, connections to everything else would significantly improve for a while if I ran Fast.com's speed test in the background. I used this trick throughout the week and it was very reliable.




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