Broadband Connection and Speed

A recent report found American broadband users have increased from 60 million in March 2005 to 84 million in March 2006 -- an increase of 40%.

The speed of your internet connection is measured by two numbers -- speed of download and upload. The DSL service has typical download speed of 1.5 Mbps (Mega bit per second), whereas cable connections can go upto about 4Mbps. Upload numbers are typically lower than download numbers. Compare this with about 56Kilo bps for dial-up services.

Service providers of broadband service tend to quote higher numbers to customers. Some providers have 3 or 4 types of services with monthly charges based upon speed and, in most cases, you may find you are not getting what you are paying for. If you ask your provider, the typical reply you may expect is: "Oh! That's the maximum speed -- not the speed you can expect daily".

How to check your internet speed? Visit any of the following websites and check. These three are our favorites because they have good graphics to represent the speed of your connection:
speakeasy.net/speedtest/
reviews.cnet.com/7004-7254_7-0.html
myspeed.visualware.com/voip/index.html

[Disclaimer: LiveInUSA has no connection with these websites. We're providing these links only because we think these would be helpful to our readers]