Tech Spotlight

Yesterday I seen a commercial for my ISP (Internet Service Provider) stating a guaranteed download speed of 6 Mb a second.  I also noticed some very very small print on the screen.  So what I did was rewind my DVR (Digital Video Recorder) and pause it on that screen.  Where it stated the speed there was a minuscule * (asterisk) with the words “UP TO”.  Now no one could ever read this during the commercial as it was so tiny and only flashed by for a split second.  I even had trouble reading it when it was paused.  I actually had to walk up close to the TV to even see what it was saying.  This is nothing new in advertising a lot of companies use this method to protect themselves.

There are many things that can affect your upload and download speed.  If you are using DSL and are close to the outskirts of there availability your speed will be dramatically reduced.  On Cable if you have some bandwidth hogs in your neighborhood your speed can also be reduced.  I have noticed certain times of the day my download speed will drop to 1 Mb a second.  This usually happens during like 3-7pm in my area and the other parts of the day it usually runs between 4-5 Mb a second.

It’s worth noting that you should check your speed during different parts of the day to see if there is an effect on your bandwidth.  If you want to get accurate results then you should not use your Internet connection for any other applications once the speed checker is running.  Speed testing can be done through a great site called DSL Reports.  Links are shown below.

Flash Based - http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest?flash=1
Java Based - http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest?java=1