I spoke with my good friend Matt, who spends his days managing the technology for a medium-sized school district. In addition to maintaining and improving connectivity for its schools also does a lot of outreach to parents to help them make smart decisions for home connections. We talked about how to be a smart shopper for home Internet, starting with what you actually need, and moving to what's available in your area. I learned a lot and am going to reconsider my options based on what I learned.

Useful Links:

• Internet Connection Speed Test - a site where you can test your up and downstream speeds, latency, and jitter. Just hit "Start Test" and the site will do the rest.