The speed at which you are able to connect to the Internet is usually indicated as the maximum speed at which your:

·         dial-up modem, ADSL modem or other transmission device

·         connection to some telecommunications infrastructure i.e. public switched telephone network, broadband link, wireless service or leased circuit

can send information to, or receive information from the Internet.

The theoretically possible connection speed is usually expressed in terms of kilobytes per second (kbps) – thousands of bytes per second.  For example, a typical dial-up modem will be rated at 56kbps, whereas a broadband connection will be rated at 256 or maybe 512kbps (sometimes even faster).

However, the rate at which you can send or more usually, receive information from the Internet is governed by many more factors. 

For example, the speed at which your computer can receive, process and display information on your display can have a significant bearing on the perceived connection speed.  This is usually governed by the cycle speed of your processor, amount of memory, type of graphics card installed etc. 

Another element in this complex calculation of speed is the transmission capability of your telecommunications – whether it is a dial-up telephone line, broadband, fibre optic, wireless etc. 

Next, there is the Internet itself.  Since the Internet is a global network, crossing every time-zone, there are periods when sections of the Internet are busiest and periods when those sections are quiet.  The time of day that you are accessing the Internet and the location of the web-site that you are trying to reach are important factors in the time taken to respond to your request to display a particular web page. 

Finally, the web site you are accessing has a part to play in this complex scenario.  If it is a very busy and popular site (like Microsoft for example), then the number of users it can simultaneously serve is based on the power of the computer(s) that the organisation uses to host its web site. 

You will probably be interested to know how well your own link to the Internet is performing.  We have recently discovered an interesting web site (there are a number available in many different countries), that enables you to measure the actual connection speed of your link.  Visit the following site:

http://www.numion.com/YourSpeed/Checkup.php?L=uk

Initially this site will measure how long it takes to display web site graphics from a number of UK based web sites.  It will then calculate the average speed across them all and produce an effective transmission rate expressed in kbps (and also in bits per second – bps, where one byte is equal to 8 bits). 

You can then change the location of the web sites across which these calculations are made and see the difference in effective connection speeds.

Give it a try - it can be very interesting!