Wednesday March 11, 11:01 am Eastern Time
Company Press Release
Internet Performance 60% Faster This Year Than 1997 -- Keynote
Systems Announces Internet Performance Results for January and
February
Major Outages Degraded Performance by 20 Percent from January to February
SAN MATEO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 11, 1998-- During the first two months of 1998, overall Internet
performance was 60 percent faster than during the comparable period of 1997 according to measurements announced today
by Keynote Systems, the recognized authority on Internet performance.
Despite this dramatic improvement over the previous year, overall Internet performance the first two weeks of February 1998
degraded 20 percent from January's levels, primarily due to outages at the MAE-West Network Access Point (NAP) and
major backbone providers.
These performance results are based on 180,000 measurements conducted each week for the Keynote Business 40 Internet
Performance Index, a standard index of the overall health and performance of the Internet that measures the time required to
access and download pages from 40 important business World Wide Web sites. A graph depicting Internet performance over
the past year can be found on Keynote's web site at keynote.com.
Four of the eight weeks in January and February saw major Internet outages, three of which involved problems at the
MAE-East and MAE-West NAPs. Two of these outages seriously degraded overall Internet performance early in February,
with performance averages of 26.41 seconds in the first week of the month and 26.53 in the second week compared to
average performance between 21 and 22 seconds for each week of January. Performance worsened somewhat the third week
as problems in the west-coast network of GTE/BBN (NYSE:GTE - news) degraded performance for many users attempting
to access web sites on that backbone.
After the outages of early February, the month settled down and weekly performance returned to the 21-second range
measured the previous month. January's performance was 13% slower than the last week of December as Internet use
increased after the Christmas and New Year's holidays. Thursday, Jan. 22, was a particularly bad performance day for the
web sites of USA Today, The New York Times, and CNNfn, owing to increased Internet traffic and congestion by users at
work seeking up-to-the-minute news about the evolving White House sex scandal that was announced the previous day.
Table of Weekly and Monthly Average Performance
1998 1997
January week 1 22.09 36.05
week 2 21.09 37.67
week 3 21.00 32.88
week 4 21.59 34.10
average 21.44 35.17
February week 1 26.41 45.83
week 2 26.53 40.90
week 3 23.45 46.29
week 4 21.19 38.56
average 24.39 42.89
The fastest metropolitan areas from which to access the Internet -- often four times faster than the slowest ones -- were
Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, and Boston. The slowest metro areas included Minneapolis/St. Paul; Dallas/Ft. Worth;
Washington, D.C.; Tampa; San Diego; and Columbus. The significant variation in performance by users' geographic locations
illustrates the performance differences among backbone providers, Internet technologies, routing and traffic patterns.
How the Keynote Business 40 Internet Performance Index is Calculated
The Keynote Business 40 Internet Performance Index reflects overall Internet performance by measuring the average response
time experienced by users in 27 metropolitan areas around the United States accessing standard web content from a mix of 40
important business World Wide Web sites during the peak business hours of 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time, Monday
through Friday.
To gather data for the Index, Keynote Systems uses its Keynote Perspective service to measure how long it takes to access
and download a web page via industry-standard HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol), the same protocol used by the
Microsoft (NASDAQAQ:MSFT) and Netscape (NASDAQAQ:NSCP) web browsers, every 15 minutes around the clock
from each of the 40 web sites included in the Index.
Although Keynote has 48 measurement locations around the world, the Index is calculated only from the measurements taken
by the 38 software measurement agents located in 27 major metropolitan areas around the United States. This produces over
180,000 performance measurements each week for the Index.
The 40 Web Sites on the Keynote Business 40 Internet Performance Index
The Keynote Business 40 Internet Performance Index comprises performance measurements for 40 public web sites in six
categories:
Publishing
-- CNET (NASDAQ:CNWK - news)
-- CNNfn - a subsidiary of Time Warner (NYSE:TWX - news)
-- InfoWorld Electric - an IDG company
-- New York Times (NYSE:NYT - news)
-- TechWeb (NASDAQ:CMPX - news)
-- The Wall Street Journal (NYSE:DJ - news)
-- USA Today - a division of Gannett Co. Inc. (NYSE:GCI - news)
-- ZDNet - Ziff-Davis, a SOFTBANK company
Search Engines and Directories
-- AltaVista - a division of Digital Equipment (NYSE:DEC - news)
-- Excite (NASDAQ:XCIT - news)
-- InfoSeek (NASDAQ:SEEK - news)
-- Lycos (NASDAQ:LCOS - news)
-- Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO - news)
Business Services
-- Dilbert (United Media) (NASDAQ:UNEWY - news)
-- Dun & Bradstreet (NYSE:DNB - news)
-- Federal Express (NYSE:FDX - news)
-- United Parcel Service
Financial Services
-- Charles Schwab (NYSE:SCH - news)
-- Fidelity
-- Merrill Lynch (NYSE:MER - news)
High Technology
-- 3Com (NASDAQ:COMS - news)
-- Apple Computer (NASDAQ:AAPL - news)
-- Bay Networks (NYSE:BAY - news)
-- Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO - news)
-- Compaq (NYSE:CPQ - news)
-- Dell (NASDAQ:DELL - news)
-- Digital Equipment (NYSE:DEC - news)
-- Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HWP - news)
-- IBM (NYSE:IBM - news)
-- Intel (NASDAQ:INTC - news)
-- Lotus - a division of IBM (NYSE:IBM - news)
-- Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT - news)
-- Netscape (NASDAQ:NSCP - news)
-- Novell (NASDAQ:NOVL - news)
-- Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL - news)
-- Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ:SUNW - news)
Communications
-- AT&T (NYSE:T - news)
-- MCI (NASDAQ:MCIC - news)
-- Sprint (NYSE:FON - news)
-- UUNET - subsidiary of WorldCom (NASDAQ:WCOM - news and WCOMP - news)
About Keynote Systems
Keynote Systems is the premier supplier of Internet performance data and diagnostic services to corporations with
business-critical web sites. The company markets Keynote Perspective, a global real-time service that measures, compares
and assures the Quality of Service of corporate Internet sites around the world. The foundation of the service is an extensive
network of customizable software measurement agents connected to the major Internet backbones in dozens of metropolitan
areas worldwide plus a sophisticated operations center for collecting and disseminating Internet performance data.
Keynote customers include some of the world's busiest and most successful corporate Internet web sites and web-hosting
companies -- including American Express (NYSE:AXP - news), DIGEX, Exodus Communications, IBM Corporation
(NYSE:IBM - news), Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC - news), The SABRE Group (NYSE:TSG - news), Sun
Microsystems (NASDAQ:SUNW - news), and Ziff-Davis -- which use the service to improve customer satisfaction and
ensure competitiveness.
For further information about Keynote Perspective, or to schedule a free one-week performance appraisal of a web site, visit
Keynote's web site at keynote.com or contact the company at Keynote Systems, Inc., Two West Fifth Avenue,
San Mateo, California 94402, telephone 650/524-3000, fax 650/524-3099, email info@keynote.com
Note to Editors: Keynote and Perspective are trademarks of Keynote Systems, Inc. Other trademarks are the property of their
respective owners.
Contact:
Keynote Systems
Gene Shklar, 650/524-3011
or
Mary Lindsay, 408/984-7242
mlindsay@sjm.infi.net
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