Vodafone takes lead in browsing speed

Former laggard Vodafone has topped the country’s ISPs in an independent test of ADSL browsing speed, although there was only a fraction of a second’s difference between the leader and the following three.

Just four months ago, Vodafone was coming dead last in the rankings, which are based on the time taken to load a TrueNet test webpage.

In august Vodafone took almost 2.5 seconds to load the page. This figure is now under 0.5 seconds.

Slingshot, Orcon and Telecom claimed the following spots, all at around 0.5 seconds. Telecom’s performance has been dipping slowly since August.

TelstraClear followed this pack at around 1 second for its DSL line, although its Cable service, available in only a few locations around the country, still leads the way overall, at around 0.2 seconds.

TrueNet notes that for three of the ISPs tested, one group of probes performed very well and one somewhat poorly.

"While confirming that no ISPs are manipulating TrueNet’s testing,” a release from the testers reads, "we noticed that three ISPs each had two groups of probes separated by their significantly different performances.

"With more investigative testing, TrueNet hopes to discover if there is an explanation for this.”

Go here to view the rankings.