If you want to test the net link (the syntax will differ on Windoze) :
my @a=`ping -s 1024 $servertotest -c 10`;

[download]
Then some parsing (wonderful regexes) could give you the round trip time and packet loss
which could be a good way to test connectivity between your script and the 3 servers...

Now you'll probably have to get the servers load too, to make the best choice.

UPDATE :

Here is the parsing code for my box (it's "ping output dependant" ;-)
$a[$#a-1]=~/.*?(\d+)%.*/;  # Get the Packet loss near the %
my $pl=$1;
my $rtt=(split'/',(split'=',$a[$#a])[1])[1];  # get the average Round 
+trip time

[download]

In reply to Re: HelpNeeded!!! How to test for the fastest server to download from? by zenmaster
in thread How to test for the fastest server to download from? by rlopez3d

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.