The report of the third global evaluation study of the quality of service of broadband Internet access was released today. The study, which takes the perspective of the residential/private user, was carried out by ANACOM in partnership with QMETRICS and in collaboration with FCCN - Fundação para a Computação Científica Nacional (Foundation for National Scientific Computing).
This study was conducted between 5 November and 21 December 2008 for mobile access, and between 30 October 2008 and 8 February 2009, for fixed access, and covered the three mobile operators with UMTS access technology (Optimus/Sonaecom, TMN and Vodafone) as well as the four providers of Internet access (ISP - Internet Service Providers), which together account for about 90% of the market share for fixed access, cable and ADSL (Cabovisão, Clix/Sonaecom, Sapo/PT and Zon/TV Cabo).
Among the main conclusions of the study, it is noted that the trends in download speeds achieved for international servers, for both types of access (fixed and mobile), are converging, especially for Seattle (most remote destination). However, international routes are the main cause for the dispersion of the values measured for the download speeds recorded for fixed access, bringing down the final average for all destinations.
In contrast to that seen for the download speeds of transferring files, the upload speeds available with mobile technology are higher than those provided by fixed technology.
In general, with fixed access, the average time taken to download pages was less than with mobile technology, although, for both types of access, the figures were well within the comfort threshold, providing a decent web browsing experience.
The main differentiating factor between the fixed and mobile technologies in terms of results, is network latency (delay in transmission of IP packets), which has a significant impact on interactive applications such as VoIP and online gaming.
This study also included the involvement of APRITEL - Associação dos Operadores de Telecomunicações (Association of Telecommunications Operators), DGC - Direcção Geral do Consumidor (General Directorate for the Consumer) and the providers of the Internet access service (ISPs and mobile operators) which were under analysis, whose comments were taken into consideration in defining the methodology.
Consult:
- Evaluation study of the quality of service of broadband Internet access https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?contentId=920605
