Distinguishing between dialup and highspeed

I'm an xhtml/css/java script noob....

Is there an automated way for your website to distinguish between a highspeed connection and a dialup connection so that a high-bandwidth or low-bandwidth version will automatically display for the appropriate people?

My intuition says no since I haven't heard or seen of this...but then it might be so transparent that I've never noticed.

Any help is appreciated to make the end-user experience better!

-Bob K.

 

Here are a few ideas that have been asked and answered before. Please post again to let us know what works and doesn't work for you. Very interested to find out. Thanks!

Detecting Bandwidth with Flash and loading the right content
hxxp://www.springload.co.nz/love-the-web/detecting-bandwidth-with-flash-and-loading-the-right-content/

Detecting bandwidth
hxxp://forums.adobe.com/thread/475472

Streaming Through Firewalls and Proxies: From the Client's Perspective
hxxp://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashcom/articles/firewall_streaming.html

Working with SMIL, Part 2: Detecting Bandwidth with Progressive FLV Files
hxxp://www.communitymx.com/abstract.cfm?cid=8233A

 

oh thanx awesometbn

v.good

 

Thank you very much for the feedback and I'm sure it will come in handy for others. But right now I don't have the resources nor the knowledge to use flash. Unless there is a good way to implement Flash stuff for free (and let me know if there is!) then I'd like to stick with an xhtml/css solution or similar. Key word here is *free*. I am moneyless lol.

Thanks!
Bob K.

 

the free way to use flash is flex - you can download the SDK for free

 

Remember not everyone has or will use Flash. Building in Flash is no light decision. But if you DO build a Flash site, it can be valuable to know the visitor's connection... likely why the bandwidth tools are flash-related. Flash sites usually are much bigger. I mean, a text character is just one byte (or two with Unicode), so plain text can compete with Flash in size.

Go to http://eu.levi.com and pretend you're a customer looking for men's or women's shirts. Try to get more information over any particular shirt, then go back to look at another shirt. And continue. See how long that takes you, compared to if that had been built in non-proprietary HTML/CSS with a touch of Javascript for the fading crap. Is this somewhere you'd want to shop, assuming you are an online shopper? I'm supposedly on DSL, and it took way too long to navigate through that site. Lots of time waiting for some page (esp one I'd already been to and I clicked the Back button) to load.

Flash should be restricted to where it works best : ) Gotta pimp the comic anyway, it speaks to a webdev's soul.

If you were wondering about letting those with low speed get some smaller version of your site, you could offer a lo-bandwidth button, similar to what other sites have like "low-vision" or "high-contrast", where clicking on it calls in a different CSS stylesheet, or in some cases takes people to the "mobile" version of the site, which is usually low on graphics and scripts.