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 below is for May 2002; each month you can go online at Network World Fusion for the latest data.
May 2002 report
The chart at below shows you the top dial-up ISPs in the market, and how they performed in eight metrics, as determined by eTesting Labs' Internet BenchMark data. We analyzed 19 ISPs this month; if your ISP isn't listed among the top performers, go ask them why they're not performing as well as their competitors.
| Top
ISPs profile, May 2002 |
| ISP |
Network
World Analysis |
| National Retail |
| AT&T WorldNet |
Above the average in all categories tested, and tops in 8 out of nine. This ISP is in a class by itself.
|
| Regional Retail |
| Verizon-East | Squeaks out a victory over SBC PacBell, though PacBell is strong in 4 categories |
| Business-to-Business |
| AT&T
(BIS) |
No contest -- the best in this market this month. |
How we did it
Who we tested
Top ISP archive
| Category |
| 24-hour
CFR% Bolded ISPs are highest |
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
average |
Regional
average |
B2B
average |
| 1.80% |
1.80% |
2.80% |
| Top
ISPs* |
| AT&T |
BellSouth |
AT&T
(BIS) |
| EarthLink |
SBC PacBell |
McLeod
USA |
| JunoWeb |
Qwest |
WorldCom |
| MSN |
Verizon-East |
XO |
| 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
average |
Regional
average |
B2B
average |
| 1.70% |
1.40% |
2.50% |
| Top
ISPs* |
| AT&T |
BellSouth |
AT&T (BIS) (tie) |
| EarthLink |
SBC PacBell |
McLeod
USA (tie) |
| JunoWeb |
Verizon-East |
WorldCom |
| MSN |
|
XO |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 2.00% |
2.40% |
3.00% |
| Top
ISPs* |
| AT&T |
Bell
South |
AT&T
(BIS) |
| EarthLink |
Qwest |
McLeod
USA |
| JunoWeb |
Verizon-East |
WorldCom |
| MSN |
|
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 |
| Initial
modem speed (in K bit/sec) |
Measurement
of the negotiated connection speed to your ISP once the call
has successfully gone through. |
| National
average |
Regional
average |
B2B
average |
| 49.34 |
49.28 |
49.26 |
| Top
ISPs* |
| AT&T |
BellSouth |
AT&T
(BIS) |
| EarthLink |
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 |
| 30.37 |
29.86 |
29.89 |
| Top
ISPs* |
| AT&T |
BellSouth |
AT&T
(BIS) |
| EarthLink |
Quest |
McLeod
USA |
| MSN |
SBC Southwestern Bell |
|
| 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.
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 |
| 349.53 |
330.13 |
407.10 |
| Top
ISPs* |
| AOL |
BellSouth |
AT&T
(BIS) |
| AT&T |
SBC
PacBell |
Genuity |
| EarthLink |
SBC
Southwestern Bell |
WorldCom |
| MSN |
Verizon-East |
XO |
| 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 |
| 4.98 |
5.43 |
5.42 |
| Top
ISPs* |
| AT&T |
SBC
PacBell |
AT&T
(BIS) |
| EarthLink |
SBC Southwestern Bell |
McLeod
USA |
| JunoWeb |
Verizon-East |
XO |
| MSN |
|
|
| 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.
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 |
| 27.36 |
28.15 |
28.74 |
| Top
ISPs* |
| AOL |
BellSouth |
AT&T
(BIS) |
| AT&T |
SBC
PacBell |
McLeod
USA |
| CompuServe |
SBC Southwestern Bell |
XO |
| Prodigy |
Verizon-East |
|
| * 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% |
1.10% |
0.80% |
| Top
ISPs* |
| AOL |
SBC Ameritech |
AT&T
(BIS) |
| AT&T |
SBC
PacBell (tie) |
Genuity |
| EarthLink |
Verizon-East (tie) |
|
|
|
|
| * 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
How we did it
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 ISPs compared to the other ISPs within the same market classification (national, regional or business-to-business ISP). Based on that analysis, we rank the top ISPs for the month listed. The chart above lists the 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.
(back to top)
Recent archive:
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Your query is too restrictive.
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Who we tested
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