System and method for calculating the transfer rate across a communication medium using a downloaded test program and transferring data accordingly

摘要

A system and method determines a data transfer rate from a server to a client as follows. A server transfers a test program or a reference to the test program to the client and the client executes the test program. The test program requests test data from the server, measures the elapsed time to obtain the test data, and calculates a transfer rate based on the length of the test data and the elapsed time. Either the client or the server selects data corresponding to the client request, to send to the client based on the calculated transfer rate. The system and method can be used in a WWW environment where the data is a web page and the test program is an applet.