Comreg launching broadband speedtest

An ad has appeared on etenders.gov.ie, the government website for national tenders. The ad is from comreg who want to hire a company to manage a national broadband speedtest initiative. The speedtest appears to be aimed at helping customers compare speedtests from different companies at locations around the country. They seem to want to get the company to recruit a representative sample of testers from around Ireland as well as offer a speed measurement tool.

Currently there are many speedtest sites on the web including one of the most popular, www.speedtest.net, but these are not very reliable as they can be affect by lots of things. The best way to measure broadband speed is to time the download of a fixed file so presumably this is what comreg will aim at. It could of course be some time before the service (planned for comreg’s sister site www.callcosts.ie, is up and running but it should be seen as a welcome addition to comregs tools to help consumers make the best decision re their broadband provider.