On Fri, 27 Jun 1997, Sean Donelan wrote:
Ok, so I said I wasn't going to comment on the methodology, I lied. I wouldn't say the Keynote study is the worst ever. There are some really rotten studies in the fields of psychology and sociology.
Since the Boardwatch/Keynote study didn't 'test' DRA Net, I guess I'm one of the few independent, disinterested parties to comment on the study's methods.
A problem with the Keynote study is it seems very dependent on the location, type and connections of the testing platforms. Keynote mentions that connections from Dallas and Phoenix were slow to 'every' backbone site. This would indicate some systematic problem with the testing sites. Perhaps the results are even more dependent on the testing systems than the systems under test. There are also problems with outlier data points. For example, elsewhere on the Keynote site, the MCI web site had very fast access from 28 test sites (< 4secs), and very slow access from one test site in philly (> 14secs). Mixing and matching data points, if you left out the one outlier data point, MCI would have been faster than Savvis. So I don't know if the rankings are very meaningful if a single test site can have such a pronounced effect.
-- Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO Affiliation given for identification not representation
I would really like to know how Boardwatch can continually say Savvis is a national backbone provider when they peer with nobody, and that is part of their business plan, and only buy transit from the big 5. Then they neglect to list DRA as a backbone provider, when DRA appears at many major exchanges and peers with damn near everyone under the sun from what I can tell. DRA has a high speed cross country network and many international locations as well. Savvis claims to have a cross country backbone, but that only currently runs from Chicago to Dallas through St Louis, how on earth is that a national backbone? ============================================================== Tim Flavin Internet Access for St Louis & Chicago Internet 1st, Inc Toll Free Sales & Support 800-875-3173 http://www.i1.net For more information email info@i1.net ==============================================================