Question: I ran a broadband test on a website, and I appear to be getting a slower DSL connection than the speed I subscribed to; why is this?

Answer: The reason you are experiencing a slower DSL speed than the speed subscribed to is because of addressing. The many tests offered on the web that claim to test a broadband connection speed do not put into consideration addressing. Whenever a person sends information across the Internet it gets divided into packets of information; these packets are further segmented into addressing blocks and payload blocks. The payload holds the actual information a person is requesting or sending out, while the addressing block holds information regarding the source and destination of the packet. The addressing portion of the packet can be up to 10% of the information going across an Internet connection. This means that 10% of the DSL connection's bandwidth or speed is being utilized for addressing information alone. The bandwidth testers offered by many different websites do not put this into consideration, they only measure the payload portion of the packet. A person may have a 256 Kbps connection, but they need to put into consideration that the information they send out needs to be addressed to someone or somewhere and it needs a return address so that the requested information can be directed to the proper location, meaning that only 230.4 Kbps will be used for payload.