The site SpeedTest.net allows you to select servers to ping from around the country on an interactive map and graphically displays connections as they travel with varying speeds along the way. It also lets you store results of tests for your computer and sort them by date, time, speed and distance.
Now what I really like about this site is not only does it do what alot of other bandwidth testing sites do and show you your upload/download speeds it also lists latency numbers between you and the server that you chose. And allows you to play the “I wonder” game. Like are connections from Denmark and the Netherlands faster as you often hear all over the Net. The answer is yes. And will speeds from an island such as Australia and Hawaii be slower? That answer is somewhat strange. Some of the cities on those islands have alot higher latency while others don’t. I wondered are the connections traveling via a fiber optic cable along the bottom of the ocean or are they coming back via a satellite.
Anyway the user interface for this site is really I think apealing. And fun to use. And you can even do comparisons with other locations close to you and that use the same Internet service providers. What do you think? Please drop me a comment and let me know. Is there a better site for checking this or is this the best one?
