The browsing experience is influenced to a great extent by your bandwidth value. The Internet bandwidth value represents the data transfer rate through your actual Internet connection. It is measured in Kbps (Kb/s) or KBps (KB/s) and the conversion between these units is simple: 1KBps coresponds to 8Kbps (because 1 Byte is equivalent with 8 bits). Practically, the Internet speed could be defined as the quantity of data expressed in KB or Kb transferred in one second through your actual Internet connection.

This aspect will influence the time needed for your browser to render web pages and to download or upload files. You can verify your Internet connection speed or the bandwidth value using various types of tools. The Internet speed can be determined using standalone applications or various online scripts which are created with server side or client side programming languages.

Usually, these online tools can show you the value of Internet bandwidth by performing common tests for measuring the download and upload speed. The accuracy of reports depends on many variables, such as server connection latency time for example. In other words, the real value of your bandwidth differs from the measured one by a small percent (10%-15%).

Also, if you perform repeated tests with the same tool the values will be different, but their magnitude order will reflect the type of your Internet connection.The value for the download speed should be higher than the one for the upload speed in 90% of the cases, otherwise the testing tool used is not so credible as it pretends to be.

On the Internet you will find many online resources in order to evaluate your connection properties. Some of them are: auditmypc, speedtest, speakeasy. On auditmypc website you can download a speed test and a broadband speed test, made with Java and with Flash respectively. The scripts can be used on your website for free and will be very appreciated by your visitors.