Ookla Helps MSOs, Average Joes Measure Internet Speeds
Ookla, a company best known for its free online diagnostic tool Speedtest.net, has released a new Website called Net Index http://www.netindex.com/, comparing and ranking consumer download speeds around the globe.
Through its Speedtest.net and Pingtest.net sites, Ookla conducts more than one million speed and quality tests daily. The company has compiled information from those tests to rank top Internet speeds.
Although there are other reports that rank Internet speeds by geographic location (for more, click here), Mike Apgar, Ookla’s co-founder and managing partner, said Ookla differentiates itself by taking a "fill the pipe approach."
He said a lot of speed testing is done over a Web browser that typically is limited to two threads. A "thread" refers to the broadband applications in use. Examples would include, e-mail, word processing, and other programs open on a PC as well as other computers in use in the household, and other broadband uses such as DVRs.
"As you apply multiple threads, you fill the pipe," said Apgar. "Our results tend to report a little bit higher. Most tests are providing a slower result, given the limitations of a given Web browser. We’re trying to measure the total capacity of your pipe."
Customers include Cisco, Comcast, Nokia, Time Warner Cable and Vonage.
Ookla engines are used to power apps that clients, such as Comcast, have on their own Websites. Providers use the app so their technicians can see what speeds customers are actually getting. "Comcast is a big customer," said Apgar. "They have at least 12 servers with our app residing on them."
For May 23, 2010, the top Internet speeds by location, according to Ookla, follows. The value is the rolling average throughput in Mbps over the past 30 days where the mean distance between the client and the server is less than 300 miles.
Top 10 Countries
(Required at least 100,000 unique IPs in the data)
Location index_value
1 South Korea 36.45
2 Latvia 24.34
3 Republic of Moldova 21.45
4 Japan 20.26
5 Sweden 19.83
6 Romania 18.55
7 Bulgaria 17.45
8 Netherlands 17.15
9 Lithuania 16.71
10 Portugal 14.66
…26 United States 10.16
U.S. States
State index_value
1 Delaware 15.58
2 Rhode Island 15.19
3 Massachusetts 15.03
4 New Jersey 14.13
5 Virginia 13.55
6 New York 12.66
7 New Hampshire 12.52
8 Washington 12.45
9 Colorado 12.24
10 Connecticut 12.18
11 Minnesota 11.43
12 California 11.38
13 Pennsylvania 11.01
14 Maryland 10.99
15 Wisconsin 10.66
16 South Dakota 10.45
17 Oregon 10.38
18 Georgia 10.26
19 Tennessee 9.78
20 Nevada 9.66
21 Illinois 9.66
22 Alabama 9.47
23 Arizona 9.35
24 Oklahoma 9.27
25 South Carolina 9.19
26 Texas 9.00
27 Florida 8.94
28 Kansas 8.69
29 Indiana 8.54
30 Nebraska 8.41
31 Hawaii 8.39
32 District of Columbia 8.36
33 Louisiana 8.27
34 Michigan 8.12
35 Utah 8.03
36 Vermont 7.98
37 North Carolina 7.65
38 Arkansas 7.64
39 Iowa 7.58
40 North Dakota 7.48
41 Maine 7.34
42 Kentucky 7.09
43 West Virginia 7.08
44 Missouri 6.97
45 Ohio 6.60
46 Mississippi 6.36
47 New Mexico 5.68
48 Wyoming 5.22
49 Montana 5.11
50 Idaho 4.29
51 Alaska 2.80
World Cities where unique IP addresses > 75K
City index_value
1 Seoul, South Korea 34.49
2 Riga, Latvia 27.88
3 Hamburg, Germany 26.85
4 Chisinau, Republic of Moldova 24.31
5 Helsinki, Finland 20.58
6 Stockholm, Sweden 19.97
7 Bucharest, Romania 19.68
8 Sofia, Bulgaria 18.99
9 Kharkov, Ukraine 18.15
10 Kaunas, Lithuania 17.46
11 Paris, France 17.30
12 Lisbon, Portugal 17.28
13 Vilnius, Lithuania 17.04
14 Hong Kong, Hong Kong 16.05
15 Porto, Portugal 15.60
16 Zurich, Switzerland 15.59
17 Cluj-Napoca, Romania 15.35
18 San Jose, California 15.02
19 Moscow, Russia 14.58
20 Saint Paul, Minnesota 14.53
21 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 14.18
22 Saint Petersburg, Russia 14.04
23 Vienna, Austria 14.03
24 Amsterdam, Netherlands 13.96
25 Bratislava, Slovakia 13.85
The initial Net Index provides averages and details around consumer broadband speeds, as well as an overall measurement of connection quality based on key criteria including ping, jitter and packet loss. Future data sets will be provided quarterly and expanded to provide for additional metrics and resulting insight, such as business connectivity and the imminent “Value Index,” designed to rationalize and compare the “cost per megabit” of speed for businesses and consumers worldwide.
-Linda Hardesty
