diff --git a/pandas/io/tests/test_parsers.py b/pandas/io/tests/test_parsers.py
index 1c8b7754c500f..8437875b17060 100644
--- a/pandas/io/tests/test_parsers.py
+++ b/pandas/io/tests/test_parsers.py
@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@
 from pandas import DataFrame, Index, isnull
 from pandas.io.parsers import (read_csv, read_table, read_fwf,
                                ExcelFile, TextParser)
-from pandas.util.testing import assert_almost_equal, assert_frame_equal
+from pandas.util.testing import assert_almost_equal, assert_frame_equal, network
 import pandas._tseries as lib
 from pandas.util import py3compat
 
@@ -798,6 +798,7 @@ def test_na_value_dict(self):
         assert_frame_equal(df, expected)
 
     @slow
+    @network
     def test_url(self):
         # HTTP(S)
         url = 'https://raw.github.com/pydata/pandas/master/pandas/io/tests/salary.table'
@@ -806,10 +807,20 @@ def test_url(self):
         localtable = os.path.join(dirpath, 'salary.table')
         local_table = read_table(localtable)
         assert_frame_equal(url_table, local_table)
+        #TODO: ftp testing
+
+    @slow
+    def test_file(self):
         # FILE
+        if sys.version_info[:2] < (2, 6):
+            raise nose.SkipTest("file:// not supported with Python < 2.6")
+        dirpath = curpath()
+        localtable = os.path.join(dirpath, 'salary.table')
+        local_table = read_table(localtable)
+
         url_table = read_table('file://localhost/'+localtable)
         assert_frame_equal(url_table, local_table)
-        #TODO: ftp testing
+
 
 class TestParseSQL(unittest.TestCase):
 
diff --git a/pandas/util/testing.py b/pandas/util/testing.py
index 9552ed230d051..7a41b32baad0f 100644
--- a/pandas/util/testing.py
+++ b/pandas/util/testing.py
@@ -294,3 +294,40 @@ def skip_if_no_package(*args, **kwargs):
     package_check(exc_failed_import=SkipTest,
                   exc_failed_check=SkipTest,
                   *args, **kwargs)
+
+#
+# Additional tags decorators for nose
+#
+def network(t):
+    """
+    Label a test as requiring network connection.
+
+    In some cases it is not possible to assume network presence (e.g. Debian
+    build hosts).
+
+    Parameters
+    ----------
+    t : callable
+        The test requiring network connectivity.
+
+    Returns
+    -------
+    t : callable
+        The decorated test `t`.
+
+    Examples
+    --------
+    A test can be decorated as requiring network like this::
+
+      from pandas.util.testing import *
+
+      @network
+      def test_network(self):
+          print 'Fetch the stars from http://'
+
+    And use ``nosetests -a '!network'`` to exclude running tests requiring
+    network connectivity.
+    """
+
+    t.network = True
+    return t