Have you ever wondered why your web access speed is sometimes blazing fast, while at other times you are waiting for response at a slow-as-molasses pace? Yeah, me too. I've been obsessed with web performance and page speed since 1996, so I'm sensitive to slowdowns.

Would you be surprised to find out that telecom/cable providers are intentionally and deliberately slowing down web access? Yeah, me too. Empirical data from test results show that at least one provider is chocking users access 85% of the time! U.S. providers are slowing you down twenty-three percent (23%) of the time. Globally, it's even worse - 32% of the tests show provider slowdown.

There is software that proves it. Internet access operators don't want to talk about it openly, but when you dig into their standard service contracts, it's confirmed. They "throttle" your speed whenever they want based on their needs...not yours.

NY Times Sheds Light on Throttling Slowdown Sources

Data speed was critical to me in 1991 because I wrote proprietary healthcare information exchange technology back then using 2400 baud modems. The kicker? The programming language was Clipper & Foxpro. Sounds stupid to me too...looking back. But it was fun programming, a bit cutting edge, and I got ego boosts whenever my geeky friends would ask, "You did WHAT?! With a room of 286 PCs and a Clipper?!"

It was a glorious day for me and my rag-tag team of basement-dwelling coders when we finally received a 9600 baud modem in the UPS shipment. We had a party that day!

Twenty years later, and I am still ultra-sensitive to data transfer slowdowns. I'm usually very happy with my Comcast connection, but occasionally my web applications are slowing to a crawl. It's obvious from my app server monitoring that the problem is somewhere other than the back-end. Thanks to this article published today by Kevin O'Brien at the NYTimes.com I have a better idea of why my Internet access speed seems to fluctuate inexplicably.

Kevin shares with us how the Networked Systems Research Group concluded:

...the blame often lies with the telecom operator, which is selectively slowing broadband speeds to keep traffic flowing on its network, using a sorting technique called throttling.