Testing download speeds for dial up?

**obliquegeek** · Dec 8, 2004 03:35

I'm running ADSL as is everyone I know (I don't know that many people!). I was wondering if there is anyway of testing the download times of pages for dial up while I'm building the websites. Is there anyway to simulate dial up speeds?

**Egor** · Dec 8, 2004 03:55

Hmm, multiply your loading time by 20

.

**CatsEyeDesigns** · Dec 8, 2004 04:43

A safe estimate for dial up users is 2-3 kilobytes per second when you factor in round trip communcation times, and all of the little chores a browser has to do to get data from a server.

Firefox has a Web Developer plugin that gives you easy access to this tool. I've found it to be pretty useful.

http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/

**raist** · Dec 10, 2004 19:04

In few known webeditors, as HomeSite or 1stPage, are "simulators" of page loading on different connections, with statistics.

**Perfectionist121** · Dec 13, 2004 14:42

Dreamweaver MX 2004 also has the ability to tell you how much time it will take for the page you are editing to load with a 56K modem (which is what most people on dial-up use).

**hello2paul** · Dec 14, 2004 00:58

I'd be wary about the download time that DWMX2004 quotes in the bottom right hand corner of the page you're working on. Although the page size might be approx. correct, I've know the download time to be as inaccurate as 22% WRONG!

**dhoydysh** · Dec 14, 2004 16:46

Be weary about DW built in download calculator. As perfectionist21 has states, I concur, it's not very trustworthy. The only real test is to test out your pages thru a dial-up connection.

-Damon

**Perfectionist121** · Dec 14, 2004 20:51

I agree. Although I suggested Dreamweaver MX 2004, the only true way to test it is to actually access the site through a dial-up connection because the speed for different connections can vary because of many things, such as phone line congestion.

**Qest** · Dec 19, 2004 15:35

I just try to keep stuff it all between 30 and 50 kb.

**spikeZ** · Jan 11, 2005 10:48

Qest, without installing software on the users system (not recommended!) or asking them what connection they are using, it is virtually impossible. What you could do if this is for testing the download time is use a php script that gets the page size and calculates the size>download speed and gives you an approximate time.

There is one in the php forum that I wrote today.

NOTE: it uses approx speeds for dial up and adsl!

Regards

SpikeZ