YouTube today introduced its Video Speed Dashboard – a free service that shows you your video speed compares to the average for your ISP, your region, your state and more.

The service also plots your video speed over time:

According to YouTube:

The goal with this dashboard is to give you insight into what your YouTube speed looks like compared to the YouTube speed of users in other regions and different ISPs. We may also list the YouTube speeds for users in you neighborhood but with different ISPs.

The speed numbers are calculated by measuring the speed at which YouTube video is received by the browser. This is then averaged over the previous 30 days provided you’ve used the same browser during this time period.

If your video speed is slower than others on your ISP, it may mean that your home or work network is slowing your access down. You can also use the information to see if video speed on your ISP’s network is slower than others in the region.

While YouTube’s Video Speed Dashboard provides interesting information – it doesn’t provide you with some sort of basic red light or green light indicator on how well your connection will work with Internet video.