If you are surfing the Internet using DSL or a cable connection, you may forget the days of dial-up connections. Did you ever surf the internet using a 24K modem? 12K? There are still plenty of users surfing the web with 56K modems, although the numbers are dropping.

A recent PEW report from May 2006 indicates:

Adoption of high-speed internet at home grew twice as fast in the year prior to March 2006 than in the same time frame from 2004 to 2005. Middle-income Americans accounted for much of the increase, along with African Americans and new internet users coming online with broadband at home. At the end of March 2006, 42% of Americans had high-speed at home, up from 30% in March 2005, or a 40% increase. And 48 million Americans — mostly those with high-speed at home — have posted content to the internet.

But 42% of Americans with high-speed internet at home leaves 58% without, and with a population of more than 300 million, that leaves a lot of people still sitting at home watching images load slowly on their machines.  We literally can’t afford to forget them.

There is a very nice tool that analyzes web pages, calculate page size, composition, and download time. The script calculates the size of individual elements and sums up each type of web page component. Based on these page characteristics the script then offers advice on how to improve page load time.  Web Page Analyzer is worth the time to diagnose your site.  Especially if your surfing fast.