Patent ID: 7506052

Claim:
A tangible, computer readable storage medium having computer executable instructions for rating computer network connectivity on a client computer of a user, the computer executable instructions performing steps comprising: creating, at the client computer, an initial user network experience profile specific to the user of the client computer and a network connection type, the initial user network experience profile including at least one of: initial round trip latency information gathered from an initial set of multiple access attempts to selected multiple TCP/IP connections from the client computer via the network connection type, the selected multiple TCP/IP connections at a variety of different hop counts away from the client computer and the initial set of multiple access attempts gathered at the user's request; or benchmark profile data, the benchmark profile data provided by a provider of the computer executable instructions and including a set of average latency information obtained by the provider via a series of tests of accessing selected multiple network resources, via multiple network connection types at a plurality of different computers, at different hop counts from the plurality of different computers; analyzing, at the client computer of the user, a TCP/IP connection to obtain current round trip latency information based on network browsing habits of the user and the network connection type; performing, at the client computer, a statistical analysis on the obtained current round trip latency information to derive a value; comparing, at the client computer, the derived value to reference statistical data derived from the initial user network experience profile, wherein comparing the derived valued to the reference statistical data comprises determining a proximity of the derived value to a mean of the reference statistical data; determining, at the client computer, a performance rating of computer network connectivity specific to the user and the network connection type on the client computer based on the comparison, the performance rating being a relative indication of a category of performance; and updating the initial user network experience profile with the obtained current round trip latency information to create a current user network experience profile, wherein a different initial user network experience profile and a different current user network experience profile are created specific to each different user and network connection type pair.