One of the more attractive services Mission Critical offers its subscribers is the chance to get a free performance assessment of their Web sites. According to the newsletter I read, they will measure your e-commerce site's performance from 35 cities around the world for free for one week, and then provide you a free assessment of both performance and quality and how they could be improved. Not a bad deal.

Here's a sampling from one of the newsletters in their archive:

"Mission-Critical! -- The Internet performance newsletter Issue #6

"IN THIS ISSUE

"Home users want faster Net
"Crickets feast on fiber, put the bite on $5.5 million project
"Broadband bottleneck
"IBM to charge for QoS patents
"Ascend to balance load
"Net Traffic in Asia: Where Every Line Is a Detour
"This Ad Network Is Built for Speed
"Internet performance update for week of 11/2/98 - 11/6/98
"Site of the Week for 11/9/98
"How to subscribe and unsubscribe to this newsletter
"~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Home users want faster Net
(C|Net)

"When it comes to Internet access, a growing number of home PC users are feeling the need for speed, but are having a difficult time getting their fix.
"Full Article: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,28448,00.html
"~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Crickets feast on fiber, put the bite on $5.5 million project
(Network World)

"Everyone's heard of computer viruses, but it was bugs that put the brakes on a $5.5 million network project at a school district in Texas. No, not software bugs, but the creepy, crawly kind - crickets, to be exact.
"Full Article: http://www.nwfusion.com/archive/1998/51152_11-09-1998.html.. "

If you're looking for a quick overview of Internet-related news, along with links for the full articles, and your concern is the performance of your e-commerce efforts, this seems like a quality package to consider. Recommended.