This simple howto explains howto to check your download rate through a ft proxy

private Proxy
=============

If it's a private proxy, first create a tunnel to this proxy with ::

    ssh -l <user> -L 3128:localhost:3128 <host proxy>

Next, configure your proxy::

    export ftp_proxy=localhost:3128 <proxy_host>

Finally, test your dl with wget::

    wget  --verbose --proxy=on \\
    ftp://ftp.free.fr/mirrors/ftp.ubuntu.com/releases/7.10/ubuntu-7.10-desktop-i386.iso

You can check if your traffic uses the proxy with iftop, example::

    iftop -i eth0

public or internal Proxy
========================

You just set your proxy host/port and launch wget::

    export ftp_proxy=localhost:3128
    wget  --verbose --proxy=on \\ 
ftp://ftp.free.fr/mirrors/ftp.ubuntu.com/releases/7.10/ubuntu-7.10-desktop-i386.iso