Speed Lab, Measuring the Real Gain from Combining Connections

Regular speed tests are misleading for combined connections. The result depends on how many connections the test site opens and which server it picks. That is why V2Duo has its own measuring tool that answers one simple question: how much faster am I with combining than with my best link alone?

How the Speed lab works

While connected, tap "Speed lab: test the real gain" on the home screen and choose Start test. V2Duo then:

1. Measures each link alone, with the same configs and settings you use right now.
2. Measures everything together, through V2Duo itself.
3. Measures page open time, a number for how quickly a light page loads.
4. Shows the verdict: the gain over your best single link, and an explanation if something is off.

Each measurement uses eight parallel downloads, the way a download manager or a heavy page works. That matters, because combining does nothing for a single download, and a test that opens only one connection shows the wrong number.

How much data does it use?

Each measurement uses at most about 15 MB and stops as soon as the speed is steady. In practice a full test with two links uses about 20 to 45 MB. The exact amount is shown at the end.

Reading the results

A good gain

If the result says V2Duo is, say, 40 percent faster than your best single link, everything works as it should. The closer your two links are in speed, the bigger this number gets.

A small gain with unequal links

Say mobile data does 113 Mbps and Wi-Fi does 15. At best, combining adds about 15 Mbps, roughly 13 percent. The Speed lab explains that in this case the faster link gets the bigger share so you keep its full speed, while the slower one adds extra lanes and keeps you online. It also offers to apply the best shares.

Slower than your best link

If the combined speed is even lower than your best link alone, it is usually one of these:

• The shares are off: the slow link took too many connections. Tap "Apply best shares" in the result; V2Duo sets the shares and tests again.
• The config is the bottleneck: if the config's server is slow, no amount of combining makes it faster. Pick faster configs or run two or three at once.
• One link does not really work: if measuring one link "failed", that link or its config has a problem.

Why combining does not lower ping

The Speed lab also shows page open time. This number does not improve with combining, because each single request goes over one path and has that path's delay. Speed adds up for downloads, video and heavy pages, but a light page does not open twice as fast. We say so in the app too.

How do we know the test is fair?

We use the same method in the automated tests of every release: each link alone through the same configs, then everything together. The comparison is fair and the difference comes only from combining, not from a different test server. Read more about how we test on the About page.

Frequently asked questions

The V2Duo team wrote this guide from tests on real devices and updates it with every release. How we test