I am trying to get the speed of webhosts from a 3rd party, as I am trying to compare which of two services are faster.

Any ideas?

Ask each host for some files to download (test) and check them at different times of the day to get a good comparison.

I recommend you go to http://www.netmechanic.com/. They have a trial version of there server monitor. It does server tests for 8 hours and emails you the results.

I agree with Vizi that the "netmechanics" may help you to check the performance of the servers.