Face it, web sites that load lickety-split on a dialup connection are becoming a thing of the past (yeah.. maybe they never existed in the first place).  As more people move to broadband, web designers and application developers have a lot more leeway to create a richer experience, whether it’s in the form of higher bandwidth, prettier media, interactive flash and ajax applications, or, quite simply, more content all around.

Here’s the thing, though, not all “broadband” experiences are the same.

The Problem
How do you accurately gauge web application performance on different connection speeds?

If you’re in the webdev industry, you spend a lot of time online.  Chances are, you have a pretty fat pipe connecting your fancy little PowerBook to the rest of the world.  Chances are even better that you have an even faster connection to your development server.

So when you are developing a site, your impression of its load-time and responsiveness are not at all indicative of what most people will be seeing.  How will the site load on a 3Mbit Cable connection?  How about a 1Mbit ADSL connection?  Lots of people only have access to 256k DSL – how does it perform to them.  Is the site functional or completely useless for the poor bastard with the 56k dialup connection?