Neotel soft-launched its NeoConnect Prime service in April, promising peak speeds of up 2.4Mbps and an average performance of between 300 and 700Kbps.<\/p>\n
Initial testing of the service gave local speeds of between 142Kbps and 600Kbps, averaging out at 373Kbps. International speeds varied between 93 and 700Kbps with an average of 397Kbps.<\/p>\n
Conducting the same speed tests last week gave significantly improved results. Local speeds ranged between 967Kbps and 2 111Kbps with an average downlink speed of 1489Kbps. International speed tests gave an average download speed of 617Kbps.<\/p>\n
Uploads were very consistent at 68Kbps, similar to initial testing results.<\/p>\n
The technical improvements to Neotel’s NeoConnect service can also be seen in local latencies. Initial testing gave latencies close to 700ms to sites on the Verizon Business network. This subsequently dropped to around 170ms while international latency is fairly consistent at just over 400ms.<\/p>\n
Large file downloads from Mirror.ac.za on the TENET network and Internet Solution’s FTP service was also encouraging. Average speeds achieved for large downloads from these two services averaged at 1 500Kbps, significantly higher than the 900Kbps during testing a few weeks ago.<\/p>\n
Network improvements<\/strong><\/p>\n Neotel confirmed that it had beefed up its NeoConnect service. “Based on feedback received during the pilot and alpha commercial phase, Neotel has made a number of technical improvements to NeoConnect, and will continue to respond to customer feedback to ensure continuous improvement,” the company said.<\/p>\n “In respect of Internet performance, Neotel has now implemented public and private peering and local transit with several South African ISPs, providing shorter, faster routing paths to the South African Internet, avoiding all tromboning of local traffic across international links.”<\/p>\n Neotel pointed out that routes to the rest of the global Internet make use of Neotel’s Tier 1 IP Transit through the Tata Communications POP in Johannesburg, linked internationally directly across the SAT-3\/SAFE submarine optical fibre system. <\/p>\n The company said that it was also increasing the capacity of these links to meet growing enterprise and consumer demand.<\/p>\n