Lanchester.net ...musings of an old nerd

I bought a Verizon Novatel Mi-Fi 2200 Wireless Hotspot to work with an Apple Tablet. (It's actually an iPad, horrid name, yet to be released by Apple.)
 
I tested the speed of the Mi-Fi* at work and at home and at various places using my favorite iPhone speed test app, SpeedTest.net. Well, the Mi-Fi was getting TROUNCED by AT&T 3G on SpeedTest.net every single day. I chalked it up to a very nice AT&T 3G setup in this area. (*I understand I'm actually testing the speed of Verizon's 3G CDMA-based EVDO data service, not the speed of the Mi-Fi, but it's much shorter to say "Mi-Fi" than all that!)
 
Then something big happened. The "Great AT&T Melt-Down of 2010" at work began. Too many iPhones. Too much drain on the AT&T amplifier in our buildings. AT&T's service tanked to a range of 0.00 Mbps to 0.09 Mbps download last week.
 
The Mi-Fi provided zippy network access to three of us, including two who were hitting Pandora, and still the Mi-Fi download speed was reported around .29 Mbps. Hmmm...
 
I finally decided to get the computer at home on the Mi-Fi, and I used the internet version of SpeedTest.net to check the speed. What? The Mi-Fi reported 1.66 Mbps, a huge jump.
 
That's when I figured something was fishy. I tried the iNetworkTest app on the iPhone. Mi-Fi: 88.79 Kbps. AT&T 3G: 54.68 Kbps. What?!
 
So when I cruised to dslreports.com on the iPhone (i.dslr.net/iphone_speedtest.html), the Mi-Fi was 1510 Kbps, and AT&T 3G was 640 Kbps. Double what?!
 
The SpeedTest.net app (NOT the website) appears to be reporting incorrect data. SpeedTest.net app indicates the iPhone on Mi-Fi is .29 Mbps (296.96 Kbps), and on AT&T 3G is .38 Mbps (389.12 Kbps). Clearly wrong.
 
Speeds are measured in bits per second, not bytes. To translate megabits to kilobits, multiply the megabits by 1024, or divide the kilobits by 1024 (your choice).
 
The conclusions to be drawn are:

• Don't trust a single speedtest app/website.
• Speed test results vary, based on how busy the download/upload speed test server is and other factors.
• The iPhone appears to slow things down. (There's no way to test AT&T 3G on my laptop, but the Mi-Fi appears to download far faster on a laptop than on the iPhone.)
• The Mi-Fi was definitely the way to go for the Apple Tablet (iPad)!!!