RE: P.01
Phil Taylor (Phil@lansystems.co.uk)
Tue, 26 Aug 1997 17:40:17 +0100
> ----------
> From: Scott Black[SMTP:admin@emporium.on.ca]
> Sent: 26 August 1997 16:54
> To: Damien T.
> Cc: portmaster-users@livingston.com
> Subject: Re: P.01
>
> At 08:32 AM 8/26/97 -0700, you wrote:
>
> >"Availability in relation to dial up connectivity is measured by the
> number
> >of busy signals encountered in 100 attempts to connect. It is
> expressed as
> >a 'p level' of service where p.05 is equal to five busies per 100
> attempts.
> >Ask your ISP what 'p level' they grade their dial up service to. An
> ideal
> >level for business use is p.02. An acceptable level is p.05.
> Anything
> >greater is unacceptable for business use."
>
> Does this measurement have any validity at all without some mention of
> the
> time period in which the calls are made? I see the reference to
> "business
> use". Could you say that you provide "p.01 business service" if you
> delivered only one busy signal in 100 attempts during M-F 9-5? I
> think 99%
> of us would deliver "p.00 business service" under this definition.
>
In the UK, EMAP (the publishers of the Internet Magazine) undertake to
test the top 50 (or thereabouts) ISP's they seem to connect at
reasonably random intervals throughout a month cycle, they will probably
connect every hour for a day and then 2-3 times a day for the rest of
the month. Interesting enough nearly 50% of all ISP's tested have 100%
availability. Not sure how many use PM3's though, we always get 100%
with ours !!!
> I find this interesting. Would a better guage be to dial every 100
> minutes
> for a week (which would get you your 100 attempts).
>
As we don't have quite as much available bandwidth as the US, EMAP also
bases a lot of store on web performance. They have a specially written
web browser with no cache etc which goes and grabs www.emap.com,
www.netscape.com and www.microsoft.com each time it connects, they then
publish the fastest, slowest and average web speed for that ISP.
I don't know if similar regular tests are run by any US based magazines
but it is always an interesting read, strange how the best performers
always have the biggest adverts though :-)
> On a side note: I thought it was kinda cool that a week is almost
> exactly
> 100 X 100 minutes ;)
>
Well I never .....
Cheers
Phil