So the folks over at myspeed.visualware.com have a very easy solution. On their intro page they have a large map of the world. Wondering where to check my internet speed from in the world?  Just move your mouse over the map and you’ll get different server locations. Very helpful.

The design of the testing page looks like a graph and its gives you plenty of visual information. Very retro in design but it does a great job of giving you important information. The test performs an upload and download test. But the most interesting result is a quality test of your internet connection speed. The results is important if you want to use some VOIP program.

The test results for the folks at www.myspeedyinternet.com were a very decent 2.2Mbps from our near by server. Download was around 450kbps. Overall this is a great internet speed check website that you should bookmark for future use.

So in comparison I offer up the great website resource provided by the folks over at CNET. This internet speed test website is great. Now I must say its really great if you live in North America. The design of the speed tester allows to enter some data which is geared to the North American market. You can enter your area code and select your ISP from a list which includes some of the major companies in the USA and Canada. The site will work for international users but the site was designed with North Americans in mind.

So when you see the resources that CNET has provided you can see what I mean. The test results are great and they obviously have determined that if someone is visiting their internet speed checker website that they better make sure the information being provided is useful. Besides the speeds you also have a chart that compares the results to different service levels. Another note is that the site only checks download speeds.

The results for www.myspeedyinternet.com averaged out at 1100 kbps. You can check out the CNET internet speed tester at reviews.cnet.com/internet-speed-test/.

The folks at McAfee could provide a much better product in my humble opinion. They offer a great explanation of internet connection speeds and how they work but the results produced from their internet speed test are terrible. I kept getting either 100 or 200 with no changes which means they seem to be taking the easy way out.

If your company is selling products to consumers and you take the time to deliver some free online tools you should take the time to make them extremely accurate even if it costs you some resources on the human resources side and on your server. You have the consumers attention why not make the most of it. I will not even bother posting www.myspeedyinternet.com the results from the McAfee internet speed checker. You can check check out the tester at us.mcafee.com/root/speedometer/ and see for yourself.

The main point of the article is that if you are thinking of moving you better research if the area has high speed internet access. If you currently have high speed you likely assume that all other areas would have some sort of high speed connection. That could cause some problems. Also note that some areas only have one type of connection available so you might lose your current provider so your email address would change.

Again its a great article that is available over at the sfgate.com website. The link is here.

The speed test is really simple in that it only downloads one 256K file. It does not provide you with your upload time so its only a one way internet speed test. You can keep hitting the test button so you can quickly get an average speed and it will calculate your average connection speed.

So the results are fast but until I clicked on one of the side menu options I did not realize that the test site was located in Europe. When you click the fastest users button you see some extremely fast internet connection speeds listed. An you notice that some of the IP addresses listed are in Europe. Well its because the The Netherlands. So if you are located in Europe and you are looking to test your connection speed this site is great.

For my results records at www.myspeedyinternet.com;

• Average speed was 106k/s - 848kbps

The website primary design include selling internet connection products and voip products to the business community. But they included a decent free internet speed check into their site design.

The speed test design is pretty simple which as I’ve stated is not really a bad thing. Its has one of those speedometer graphics built into the design so its got that cool look. The link to the test page is bandwidth.com/tools/speedTest/.

I’ve forgotten to include this information is some of my other posts but it looks like the site is located in Raleigh, North Carolina which means if you are located in North Carolina you should be rocking it when compared to those Aussie test results.

With that in mind here is my internet speed check results from this site.

• Download speed - 2654kbps
• Upload speed - 456kbps

I’ll include my test results in future posts more for my tracking but its important that you keep track of all the different speed test results.

The only issue for someone based in North America is that the service is based in Australia. But heck lets assume you are actually located in the region. I would recommend this internet speed checker to anyone who wants to monitor they service providers level of performance. I would bookmark the site and use it everyday.

But for someone in North AMerica I would say you can test it out but it might not be a great long term solution for a free internet speed check because the performance might suffer at times.

Even if you do not live in Canada you should check out an archived story that they did lasy November about internet connection speeds. They performed two different types of tests that checked out the connection speed at peoples homes.

The show really sticks it to one of Canada’s biggest ISPs, Bell, but based on the test results its hard not to think that Bell is not delivering the goods. What is interesting is that their biggest competitor in some markets, Rogers, is even promoting the CBC marketplace story on their website as a selling tool. They are using the broadcast to back up their claim that their service is more reliable. Their service won the internet speed test and when one person on Rogers complained that they had slow internet connection speeds the tech person figured out its was her equipment and not Rogers.

The marketplace episode is located at www.cbc.ca/marketplace/2007/11/21/speed_bumps/

The site does seem to load somewhat slow but I think thats more because its flash based. But the website interface is fantastic. You have a graphic chart with internet speed test sites. From the map you pick one site that is closest to your location and than with one click it performs a speed check. No need to register or provide an email address.

The test is aimed at people who want to speed test broadband connections to the internet. After you have clicked on your suggested server connection the site reports on a download speed (the speed of data from the server to your computer) and upload speed (the speed of sending data from your computer to the server).

Some more information about the website is provided by the sites about section. They have a question and answer section if you having problems with the speed test. The site runs on the same software that the parent company Ookla sells to clients and its used over 8 million times each month by people from around the world.

The site also suggests that you try out some different server locations on your first visit just to confirm that the suggested server is actually the best one for your connection. The website also allows you to compare your results to other connections through out the world. Plus it records your internet speed test results so the next time you visit the site you can compare the results. Its great for people like myself who seem to have service tech people in the neighbourhood who sometimes mess up the wires at the old connection box. I can quickly see past test results without having to check my own records.

Again this is a great free internet speed test site that you should check out and reference whenever you think you are connected to via a 14.4 baud modem instead of your $50.00 month high speed connection.