Need for Speed

While watching a YouTube video, I accidentally control-clicked (Mac; right-click on PC) on the video window while it was playing and discovered a choice to view my download speed for YouTube videos for the last month compared to other local communities, my state, and the USA. As you can see from the chart below, I averaged about 13 megabytes per second download speed while watching YouTube videos—significantly higher than the other averages presented. I wonder how accurate these numbers are? With the proliferation of broad-band connections (I have Road Runner Turbo), I would think average download speeds would be higher than 4-5 megabytes per second. Knowing, however, how many homeowners use DSL to connect to the Internet, which is VERY slow compared to cable (see the "Windstream" rating in the lower-left corner—3.3 mpbs—which is a local telephone/DSL Internet provider in my area), perhaps the numbers are accurate. But my speed of 13 mbps from YouTube is still significantly less than what I get when testing my down-and-up-load speeds at sites like speakeasy.net and speedtest.net (depending on the time of day around 21-25 mbps). Understandably, downloading a video from YouTube might be slower than a clean packet download from a test site.

Watch a YouTube video and check your own download speed compared to other averages.