My speed has trebled but no improvement..any ideas?

[hewittinspain]

My sevice providor has finally put my internet speed to 3mbps this morning,I originally only had 1mbps.I noticed because it shows up in the tray.

I find no improvement at all. Ive done a bandwidth speed check on various sites and im getting less than 1 meg on all of them same as before plus ive even downloaded a few things too and im only getting between 80-100kbps,again same as before but my connection is now definately showing 3mbps.
A few years back when I was living in a different area I was recieveing 2mbps and actually getting the true connection so I know from past experience my modem is fine. I should take it up with my ISP but the language barrier(to spanish) is a pain so I thought id get some ideas first.

[Sylvander]

I installed this speed tester (http://www.broadbandchoices.co.uk/speed-tester.html).
It runs automatically at startup, has my email address and password typed in so it automatically tests my broadband connection speed at each/every session.
Automatically calculates the mean connection speed for up/down load.

Screenshot 1 shows individual test results.
Screenshot 2 shows the mean values.
.

[hewittinspain]

thanks ill give it a go

[hewittinspain]

ok the first test is showing 1.1mbps
I have to give or take a little because im outside the uk but its still low.
I have no viruses and my pc is clean

[mjc]

If it was just upped today/yesterday...give it a day of so.

Have you rebooted? Modem/router/whatever?

[hewittinspain]

yeah ive rebooted.
I downloaded TCPoptimizer and automatically tweaked it which has made some difference.The speed test showed 1.9mbps as opposed to 1.1mbps before.
When I downloaded a large file it was going at speeds of around 120kbps(not fast enough) so I tried Free download accelorator and now my downloads are at 330kbps which is a vast improvement and now justifies the 3mps that i now have.

[Fruss Tray Ted]

You cannot look at a file you are downloading from a site or another computer through file sharing sites as any reliable speed reference. Not only is it possible the originating site has 'throttled' their upload speeds, there may also be some bottlenecks along the way to your computer which could further reduce the connection speed.

If you want a popular speed test site WITHOUT the need to install anything, Speakeasy (http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/) is one that has been around for awhile and has been mentioned on this site many times in the past.

I have a 3mbps download subscription with my isp and I get slightly more than that at Speakeasy. The upload is only 375kbps so if you were to download a file from me, your 3mbps connection could only work at the maximum upload that my isp is providing. Therefore the illusion would be that you are not getting what you are paying for but if you were to browse other sites or down;load multiple files, the download from me for example would remain the same because there is 'headroom' with your download connection.