Almost one in six internet connections are loaded to the point where performance is likely to be affected, according to a study by NetEvidence, leaders in network performance management.  NetEvidence surveyed "leased line" internet connections from 6,000 organisations with speeds ranging from 256K (quarter of a Mb) to Gigabit Ethernet (1,000Mb).

“We were particularly surprised that these customers who know their lines are overloaded are leaving them that way,” says Richard Thomas, Managing Director of NetEvidence. “The organisations in the survey use our Highlight network monitoring system, so they are aware of the problem. However, many organisations don't have good visibility of this key resource (i.e. they don't use Highlight or a comparable tool), and it's reasonable to assume that instances of overloading are even higher amongst this group.”

Thomas adds, “Service providers themselves are not chasing for upgrades.  However, if asked to re-price, many will offer competitively priced upgrades. New and faster lines are available all the time and service providers are keen to lock customers into fixed contracts to secure their revenues.  These customers may find that they can get a good deal and their users will benefit from vastly improved performance.  It’s much like the market for mobile phones: when you upgrade, you can get a new mobile as well as a better contract.”

Looking at the 1,000 companies with heavily loaded lines, NetEvidence were keen to know why they’d endured such low performance.  A number of reasons were presented:

• Customers are doing more with their Internet connections (such as virtual meetings or VoIP) but have no budget to upgrade;

• The consistent, if poor performance and the vastly superior support provided with their Leased Line have kept them from switching to Broadband or DSL, even though it could be faster;

• And the favourite answer: Internet applications have a built-in ‘survival’ mode to cope with poor connections and rarely fail completely. Instead, performance deteriorates slowly over time, and users simply get used to it. IT departments may choose to wait until they receive serious complaints before taking action.

Users will often end up blaming IT departments for slow servers, or chasing their web hosts about poor performance. A number of these companies will also be hosting their own web sites; so their customers will find the sites slow and unresponsive. “They could be missing a trick” said Thomas, “and an upgrade could prove to be win-win for everyone.”