Monday, March 10, 2008

Got High Speed Internet?

Do you really? Below is a good web site that will tell you just how fast your connection really is. Click on the link below and once there, click on the yellow pyramid. You can watch the test as it progresses, measuring download and upload speeds. When the test is finished, you will see your results in the lower left hand corner of the screen, but give it a moment and it will then give you a second screen with the results displayed there too. On the second screen your results are displayed in the upper left hand corner. Notice that on the right side, right below the "Rate Your ISP" box are smaller letters spelling out "View your past results.....". Click on that and on the third screen you will once again see your results, but in the bottom half of that window, they will keep a record of your results every time you try the test. This is an excellent FREE tool (have you gotten the idea that I like FREE?!). Now click on TEST AGAIN in the upper right hand portion of this third screen, and start all over. Select another pyramid if you want. Do this test many times and you will soon have a universe of samples large enough (on the lower portion of screen 3) so that you can say that "on the average" my ISP provides me a download speed of xxxx kb/s and an upload speed of yyyy kb/s.

In a subsequent post I'll list what the various ISPs in our region CLAIM to be their download and upload speeds, and you can judge your own system's performance for yourself.

FYI, the notation "kb/s" means kilobits per second, or thousands of bits per second. If you wish to further translate that into something you may understand, divide each number by 8 to get a rough approximation of how many characters (or bytes if you prefer) are actually being downloaded or uploaded per second.

SPEEDTEST.NET