The Need for Speed! 

"Our Website Visitors Have Hi-Speed Connections."

". . .or, our target market uses hi-speed connections."  I hear this sort of thing from clients, prospective clients and website designers.

Website owners and developers like to believe these things because it provides justification for our sprucing up their websites with bandwidth gobbling Flash applications and impressive graphics.  

The truth of the situation is much more complex

A recent article I read in ClickZ, (or maybe it was Marketing Sherpa), stated that nearly 60% of US Internet users are on hi-speed connections.  What it should have said was that 60% of users were not on dial-up connections!
Not every "hi-speed" connection is created equal. . .

Some examples:

In many US cities there are spots within major metro area which have mediocre Internet connectivity.  Chicago area is no exception.  We have pockets of suburban population where the only high speed alternatives to dial-up are:

1) satellite connections which require large set-up costs and monthly fees exceeding $100 or

2) a "T1" at $550 per month.

Yes, yes, I realize that many people think that we shouldn't worry that much about page loading speed anymore  ". . .because most of our users are on high-speed connections."  Still not a good statement; we need to worry because notebook computers are now majority of computer purchases and their portability invites use in circumstances with less than optimal Internet connections.

Many business people in particular take advantage of hot-spots in coffee shops, airports, hotels, etc.  Many of us also have adopted metro "Wi-Fi" which is about twice as fast as dial-up.  All of those connections are very slow, sometimes so slow that you sit there wishing you had a dial-up connection!

Nor will Internet conditions always be favorable.  When the Internet is very busy, online transactions and surfing can be snail-slow no matter what type of connection your user is hooked up with.  So, don't make problem worse with hog-slow web pages - You lose, not the visitor who won't stick around for the wait.