Top ISPs Report
Is your ISP measuring up? Find out with our Top ISP Report, a joint venture between Network World and eTesting Labs' Internet BenchMark service. The data will be updated monthly.
September 2001 report
The charts below outline the top dial-up ISPs in the market for September 2001 and how they performed in eight metrics, as determined by eTesting Labs' Internet BenchMark data. We analyzed 21 ISPs (click here for the list); if your ISP isn't listed among the top performers, ask why it's not performing as well as its competitors.
| TOP ISPs for September 2001 | |
| ISP | Analysis |
| National Retail | |
| AT&T WorldNet | The strong remain strong. Blows all other ISPs out of the water. |
| Regional Retail | |
| BellSouth | Tops the charts in a dwindling field of regional ISPs. |
| Business-to-Business | |
| AT&T (GNS) | Strong performance across all metrics. |
| September 2001's Top ISPs, by category: | ||
| -24-hour CFR% | ||
| -Evening-hour CFR% | ||
| -Business-hour CFR% | ||
| -Initial modem speed (in K bit/sec) | ||
| -Avg. time to login (in seconds) | ||
| -Avg. DNS lookup (in milliseconds) | ||
| -Avg. Web throughput (in K byte/sec) | ||
| -Avg. download time (in seconds) | ||
| -Web fail/timeout% | ||
Who we tested
Top ISP archive
Our data comes from eTesting Labs and its Internet BenchMark division. Network World takes the data and applies statistical analysis to rate the relative performance of each ISP compared to the other ISPs within the same market classification (national, regional or business-to-business). Based on that analysis, we rank the top ISPs for the month listed. The chart above lists the top three ISPs that perform above the average for the metric listed within that classification.
A list of all the ISPs tested, as well as an archive of previous
reports, appears below.
RELATED LINKS Archive of Network World Fusion Focus on Internet Services newsletters
Subscribe to the ISP e-mail newsletter
Copyright, 1994-2006 Network World, Inc. All rights reserved.
Back to top
Category
24-hour CFR%
Reflects how often a modem call to the provider gets through successfully over a 24-hour period. A failure would include a busy signal, ring no answer, modem problem or login failure. The lower the call failure rate percentage, the better.
National
averageRegional
averageB2B
average
3.35%
1.83%
2.43%
Top ISPs*
AT&T
Ameritech
AT&T (GNS)
EarthLink
BellSouth
Genuity
JunoWeb
Verizon-East
McLeod USA
MSN
NaviPath
Prodigy
Verizon-West
* Those ISPs that performed above the average in the category noted; bolded ISPs are the top performer for this metric within their respective classification
Back to top
Category
Evening-hour CFR%
How often a modem call to the provider gets through successfully during the evening hours. A failure would include a busy signal, ring no answer, modem problem or login failure. The lower the call failure rate percentage, the better.
National
averageRegional
averageB2B
average
4.68%
1.80%
3.23%
Top ISPs*
AT&T
Ameritech
AT&T (GNS)
EarthLink
BellSouth
Genuity
JunoWeb
Verizon-East
McLeod USA
MSN
NaviPath
Prodigy
Verizon-West
* Those ISPs that performed above the average in the category noted; bolded ISPs are the top performer for this metric within their respective classification
Category
Category
Business hour CFR%
How often a modem call to the provider gets through successfully during weekday business hours. A failure would include a busy signal, ring no answer, modem problem or login failure. The lower the call failure rate percentage, the better.
National average
Regional average
B2B average
3.93%
2.40%
3.02%
Top ISPs*
AT&T
Ameritech
AT&T (GNS)
CompuServe
BellSouth
Genuity
JunoWeb
Verizon-East
McLeod USA (tie)
MSN
Prodigy
Verizon-West
Back to top* Those ISPs that performed above the average in the category noted; bolded ISPs are the top performer for this metric within their respective classification
Back to top
Category
Initial modem speed (in K bit/sec)
Measurement of the negotiated connection speed to your ISP once the call has successfully gone through.
National
averageRegional
averageB2B
average
47.93
47.77
47.85
Top ISPs*
AT&T
Ameritech
AT&T (GNS)
Broadwing
BellSouth
NaviPath
EarthLink
Qwest
WorldCom
Verizon-East
XO
* Those ISPs that performed above the average in the category noted; bolded ISPs are the top performer for this metric within their respective classification
Back to top
Category
Avg. time to login (in seconds)
Reflects the time taken to connect and authenticate to a provider's network access server once the modem takes the line off-hook.
National average
Regional average
B2B average
29.4
31.79
29.06
Top ISPs*
AT&T
Ameritech
AT&T (GNS)
EarthLink
PacBell
Genuity
JunoWeb
SBIS
NaviPath
Verizon-West
* Those ISPs that performed above the average in the category noted; bolded ISPs are the top performer for this metric within their respective classification
Back to top
Category
Avg. DNS lookup (in milliseconds)
The time from sending the first DNS query until a successful response is received from any query. This reflects actual end user perception of the DNS resolution time, including retries.
National average
Regional average
B2B average
570.76
656.44
543.58
Top ISPs*
AT&T
BellSouth
AT&T (GNS)
Broadwing
Qwest
Genuity
EarthLink
SBIS
McLeod USA
MSN
Verizon-East
NaviPath
Prodigy
Verizon-West
* Those ISPs that performed above the average in the category noted; bolded ISPs are the top performer for this metric within their respective classification
Back to top
Category
Avg. Web throughput (in K byte/sec)
The effective transfer rate of the connection. The average of these Web throughput measurements is presented in the reports. Throughput does not necessarily reflect the actual bandwidth of the connection, but rather the effective Web throughput experienced using a connection.
National average
Regional average
B2B average
4.86
4.79
4.91
Top ISPs*
AT&T
PacBell
AT&T (GNS)
Broadwing
Qwest
McLeod USA
EarthLink
XO
JunoWeb
* Those ISPs that performed above the average in the category noted; bolded ISPs are the top performer for this metric within their respective classification
Back to top
Category
Avg. download time (in seconds)
The time taken for the complete Web page to download, including all page content. Calculated by measuring the time from the first HTTP TCP packet being sent to the server until the last HTTP TCP connection has terminated.
National average
Regional average
B2B average
25.63
26.53
26.11
Top ISPs*
AOL
BellSouth
AT&T (GNS)
AT&T (tie)
PacBell
NaviPath
Broadwing
Qwest
XO
EarthLink
* Those ISPs that performed above the average in the category noted; bolded ISPs are the top performer for this metric within their respective classification
Back to top
Category
Avg. total Web Fail/timeout%
Any error message that appears as a dialog box for the Internet Explorer browser is considered a Web page failure. Any download that takes longer than 4 minutes to complete is cancelled and considered a Web page timeout. A low % is considered better.
National average
Regional average
B2B average
0.60%
0.10%
0.40%
Top ISPs*
AT&T
BellSouth
AT&T (GNS)
EarthLink
PacBell (tie)
Genuity
MSN
SBIS (tie)
NaviPath (tie)
Prodigy
WorldCom
Verizon-West
* Those ISPs that performed above the average in the category noted; bolded ISPs are the top performer for this metric within their respective classification
(back to top)
NWFusion offers more than 40 FREE technology-specific email newsletters in key network technology areas such as NSM, VPNs, Convergence, Security and more.
Click here to sign up!
New Event - WANs: Optimizing Your Network Now.
Hear from the experts about the innovations that are already starting to shake up the WAN world. Free Network World Technology Tour and Expo in Dallas, San Francisco, Washington DC, and New York.
Attend FREE
Your FREE Network World subscription will also include breaking news and information on wireless, storage, infrastructure, carriers and SPs, enterprise applications, videoconferencing, plus product reviews, technology insiders, management surveys and technology updates - GET IT NOW.
Contact us |
Terms of Service/Privacy |
How to Advertise
Reprints and links | Partnerships |
Subscribe to NW
About Network World, Inc.
