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Top ISPs Report

July 2000 report

Here's our latest quarterly report from Network World and Visual Networks as we look at the top ISPs in the market. Through statistical analysis of Visual's Internet BenchMark data for dial-up service (see How We Did It), we ranked the top ISPs in the business-to-business, national and regional ISPs, as they compare to other vendors within the same market. We've also included results for the past six months, to show whether an ISPs ranking this month has spiked or is consistently above average.

In July, AT&T's WorldNet service once again dominated the national retail market, performing above the industry average in seven out of the nine categories tested. BellSouth took top honors in the regional retail market, and AG&T's Global Network Service (GNS) captured the top spot in the business-to-business market in July.

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How we did it

The data for this report comes from Visual Networks. Through its Internet BenchMark data, Visual rates national, regional and business-to-business ISPs according to several factors, including call failure rate, modem connect speed and Web download performance.

We took the raw data from Visual and applied statistical analysis to rate the relative performance of each ISP. First, we derived the standard deviation of the numbers in each performance category. Standard deviation is a measure of how far the numbers in a series diverge from each other.

For each category in which an ISP performed better than one standard deviation from the industry mean, we awarded it one point. If the ISP did better than two standard deviations from the mean, we awarded it two points. Similarly, if an ISP did worse than the industry mean by more than one standard deviation, we took a point away from its score. If it did significantly worse, meaning two or more standard deviations, we took away two points. We started with a baseline of 12 points, so if an ISP scored 0 points it ended up with an adjusted score of 12. After scoring each category, we summed the results to produce a single number that indicates the reliability and performance of each ISP. A rating of 12 means an ISP was about even with its peers, or the industry average.

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Quick Tips

When the V.90 protocol was introduced, many called it the last modem protocol that would ever be developed. But before the first quarter of 2001 has ended, an improvement to the V.90 standard could be available. The new standard, V.92, will let users increase their upload speed, cut the time it takes to connect and allow the suspension of their connection for incoming phone calls without breaking the session.

Increasing speed: When V.90 was approved, it took advantage of Pulse Coded Modulation (PCM), which uses an analog line to send a set of discrete signals that change at the same rate as the phone switch analog-to-digital converter. The theoretical maximum for such a download is 56K bit/sec. The upload channel used V.34bis techniques, but because of the energy used in the download signal, uploads were limited to a lower speed than with a V.34bis modem. Users sending large attachments or modifying images on Web pages took longer with a 56K bit/sec modem. V.92 attempts to address this problem by using PCM on both the download and upload channels.

Who benefits from V.92? If you only have one analog-to-digital conversion between your computer and ISP (i.e. the same people who get V.90 connects today), if you currently upload a lot of data, if you only want one phone line, or if you want to start your connections quicker, then V.92 might be for you. Your ISP will have to upgrade its equipment before a V.92 modem will help you at all.

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ISP report archive:

Top ISPs, 07/24/00
Top ISPs, 06/26/00
Top ISPs, 05/29/00
Top ISPs, 04/17/00
Top ISPs, 01/31/00

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