Internet providers fail to deliver what they advertise

According to a test conducted by Sri Lanka-based research firm LIRNEasia `Recent Quality of Service Experience (QoSE)`, majority of the packages tested within India, failed to deliver even 80 per cent of the advertised speeds, most of the service providers fail to deliver a mere 20 per cent of what was publicised.

In its report, the research firm compared download speeds, Round Trip Time (RTT, or the time delays in data transfer), Jitter (the variation in time between the arrival of data packets) and Packet Loss (the percentage of data packets that did not reach its destination) of eight broadband packages in four major cities across India.

Rather than comparing download speeds between packages in different locations, tests were performed during six time intervals on two weekdays in 11 locations across seven countries in south and southeast Asia.

LIRNEasia analyses package speed compared to what was promised by the operator, as well as the "value for money" (or Kbps per USD).

From a regional perspective, most Indian internet broadband services offer better value for money and perform well on delivering what was promised to the customers than other operators in Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Bangladesh.

"The regulator should promote such transparency in order to boost competition in the broadband market and improve service quality," LIRNEasia Research Manager Shazna Zuhyle said.