Inverse Network Technology today released the results of its first-quarter 1998 Internet Measurement Service (IMS) BenchMark and E-mail studies which rated the performance of 23 regional and national Internet service providers.
Top reliability marks went to Erol’s Internet and IBM Global Networks for providing the best chance of connecting at the first try.
Once an Internet connection was established, Inverse said Pacific Bell
Internet and Sprint Internet Passport had the best performance in
January, February, and March. Both companies received A or A pluses in two
out of three categories measuring domain name server look-up time,
average Web throughput, and Web download reliability.
The Inverse study also ranked call failure rates (CFR) during both business
and evening hours, and found a general improvement except for America Online whose call failure rate rose almost 3% between February and March of 1998.
Offering the highest Web throughputs were IBM Global Network, Internet MCI, Pacific Bell Internet, Prodigy, and Sprint Internet Passport which averaged throughputs above 2.20 KBytes/sec, compared to an industry average of 2.07 KBytes/sec.
Inverse also reported that the industry average for the percentage of e-mails delivered within five minutes declined over the quarter from 95% in January to 92% in February and 91% in March. The company said the decline was due in part to e-mail service outages.
Data for the Internet Measurement Service is collected 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for a two-week period each month, according to Inverse. Tests involve consumer PCs running Netscape Navigator 3.0 over a 33.6-Kbps modem, with coverage of 1,000 POPs in 42 metropolitan regions.
ISPs are tested for call failure rate, initial modem connection speed, domain
name server (DNS) look up time, DNS failure rate, Web latency, Web throughput, and Web download failure and time-out rate.