ISPA Announces 2007 Award Finalists
The Internet Services Providers' Association (ISPA UK) has announced the finalists in the 2007 ISPA Awards. The finalists were selected on the basis of their performance in tests over three months by Epitiro.
Best Dial-up Biscit ntl:telewest Orange Waitrose Zen Internet |
Best Consumer Host Keen Computers Netcetera Tesco Tiscali Virgin.net |
Best Business Host Donhost Keen Computers Onyx Internet Opal UKFast |
Best Consumer Email Biscit Madasafish Namesco Seriously Internet Tiscali |
Best Business Email Biscit Entanet Exa Networks Namesco Zen Internet |
Best Streaming Astream Groovy Gecko Keen Computers Mydeo Streaming Wizard |
Best Internet Telephony Entacall Keen Computers Lumison Seriously Vocal Tesco |
Best Wireless ISP BOZII Community Internet The Cloud West Somerset Internet |
Best Portal ntl:telewest Madasafish SidNet Tiscali Virgin.net |
Best Consumer Broadband Be Unlimited Eclipse Internet Entanet Namesco Seriously Internet |
Best Business Broadband Datanet Eclipse Internet Entanet Kingston Communications Namesco |
Best Consumer ISP Biscit ntl:telewest Orange Tiscali Virgin.net |
Best Business ISP Claranet Datanet Entanet UKFast Zen Internet |
The ISPA Awards aren't new to controversy, a bit like the Oscars. The newly introduced 'Best Internet Telephony' Award has caused some concern among VoIP operators, some of whom feel it is not testing the right metrics.
"The Best Internet Telephony Award short list is based on measuring against a VoIP service in the United States, rather than one operated by the entrants which is giving an indication of how good the finalists' broadband services and connectivity to the U.S. is, rather than how good their VoIP service is. We hope that next year ISPA will look to measure the performance of the UK VoIP services themselves, rather than just network performance."
Peter Gradwell, Managing Director - gradwell dot com Ltd.
The concern arises that whilst for example one of the finalists in this award is Entacall (www.entacall.com), the telecommunications arm of Entagroup, the tests which determined the finalists in this award only tested the performance of Entanet's broadband service for carrying "internet telephony traffic" to one specific destination rather than the performance of the Entacall phone service provided by Entanet. This in itself is a useful test to measure performance of third party VoIP services, however it is important to note that it does not measure the actual VoIP services provided by the companies up for the award.
ISPA strives to incorporate new technologies and developments in the Internet sector into it's annual awards. As regards the Best Internet Telephony category of The 2007 ISPAs, there are two stages of assessment.
Stage one assesses the performance of the entrant's network for carrying VoIP traffic. Epitiro conducted a variety of tests on the broadband lines submitted to the category to assess how well they managed SIP traffic. The testing that Epitiro carried out for the Internet Telephony Award focused on the ability of the entrant's network to carry real-time audio data as required by a VoIP call. An independent third party SIP provider was used to initiate the calls and then the audio traffic was routed over the ISPA entrants network. The results were then purely based on the quality of the audio (both upstream and downstream) during the call. Audio quality is measured using industry standard PESQ algorithms (Perceptual Evaluation of Speech Quality - ITU-T P.862.1) to compare the received audio against the transmitted reference audio.
The finalists for each category are selected based on the technical tests.
Stage two of the assessment is where the judges of the awards assess the value of the VoIP services of the five finalists, particularly the VoIP hardware and software offered by the entrant.
This is the first time ISPA has run this award, so we welcome constructive feedback on the assessment and criteria for the category. We have already identified that entrants should be briefed more effectively as to what the category assesses. As with any new award category, it takes time, trial and constructive feedback to attain the most appropriate assessment process.
ISPA Spokesman
ISPA has over time shown a great willingness to adapt its awards to changing trends with a great focus on broadband services in the current awards. The addition of a VoIP/Internet Telephony award is very welcome and we hope in future years it will grow to incorporate consumer and business VoIP services as this area of the Internet Services market continues to grow.
The award ceremony will take place on 15 February 2007 at the London Mariott Hotel in Grosvenor Square.
Comments
Or how about Tiscali in "Best Consumer ISP"? WHat a joke.
Amphion, chrisco. You took the words right out of my mouth. Eclipse lol. What a joke. These awards mean jack.
How does virgin, tiscali and orange get on best consumer iSP ? Have they even tried to call their support.
I guess that shows the state of the market that they can be considered best....
Eclipse are nominated for best business broadband and Griffin arent? Have i missed something here?
BEST CONSUMER ISP?
Biscit
Orange
Tiscali
Are they mad?
The 'finalists' are selected on the basis of technical tests carried out specifically for the ISPA Awards. If Eclipse are in the top-5 then it means they performed well.. Different people's views on ISPs vary.. The selection of the finalists doesn't take into consideration technical support, range of products, etc.. This is handled by the judging panel in selecting the winner.
Eclipse ? Worrying... :)
How can the judges make a rational decision if the important things aren't even considered in the basic selection. Load of back scratching going on methinks.
... and BISCit??? Cripes, words fail me!!!
Thankfully Kingston/Karoo aren't up for any Consumer awards :-)
BISCit, "best consumer isp"? I know I have a bit of a reason to dislike them but they are involved in a situation that, their fault or otherwise, involved 9000 customers being cut-off... The "technical tests" from Entacall, whoever they are, must be something to behold. What colour is the sky in that company's world??
a&a have a very high customer satisfaction rating and are nowhere to be seen that alone has made me sceptical about these lists.
I am soooooo glad not to see Plusnet in there, might encourage them to do better.
Why on earth are Eclipse Internet amongst the finalists of the "Best Consumer Broadband" category? This by itself destroys any credibility that these ISPA awards may have.