Tesco Is Top Of The POP3…
…and SMTP, as Britain’s Biggest Retailer Delivers Best Email Performance
Tesco broadband, the Internet service from Britain’s largest supermarket chain, delivered the best email delivery performance in the last year, new figures reveal. In the year to March 2008 Tesco broadband delivered 99.9 per cent of emails within three minutes of dispatch.
Virgin came a close second with 99.8 per cent of emails reaching their destination within three minutes, with Orange and Pipex both achieving figures above 99 per cent. Demon completes the top five.
| Overall Ranking |
Internet Services Provider (ISP) | % Emails Delivered Within Three Minutes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tesco Broadband | 99.9% |
| 2 | Virgin | 99.8% |
| 3 | Orange | 99.5% |
| 4 | Pipex | 99.2% |
| 5 | Demon | 96.3% |
This is the UK’s first Email Performance Index and is produced by Epitiro, the broadband benchmarking company. Epitiro monitored the email performance of UK Internet Services Providers (ISPs) between April 2007 and March 2008 to deliver the most accurate picture of the true email performance experienced by end users.
Email Rush Hour
The report found that the worst time to send an email is between 5 – 6pm on Thursday, when the volume of emails passing over the Internet is at its highest. During this ‘email rush hour’ an estimated seven per cent of emails are either severely delayed or lost altogether. Email delivery varied significantly by month over the course of the period tested. The report also reveals that throughout autumn the average performance of ISPs dropped below the industry average of 95.4 per cent. In September, October and November, eight emails out of 100 took longer than three minutes to arrive.
The email performance data was collected and managed via Epitiro’s ISP-I ™ (pronounced “eye-spy”) service. Epitiro used a network of satellite computers to send emails from 450 locations, while recording sending and receiving times. Special time synchronization technology was used to remove errors in time recordings while all email file sizes were kept at an absolute minimum size, consisting of just a packet header. Testing was maintained 24x7 from Epitiro’s Network Operating Centre engineers.
Epitiro’s Managing Director Gavin Johns said: “The message for the industry from Epitiro’s first annual Email Performance Index is: ‘Not bad, but could do better’.”
“Email delivery speed is a very important factor in Internet communications, not least for the credibility of an online business,” added Johns. “When customers shopping online are told to await email confirmation of a purchase, they expect this to arrive in no more than a couple of minutes. If an email takes longer than three minutes to arrive, many customers will worry that something has gone wrong, and may go through the time-consuming process of contacting the vendor’s customer service line. If an email takes more than ten minutes to arrive, most users will consider the delivery as having failed.
“The Industry annual average for successful delivery of email, defined as messages delivered within three minutes, is 95.4 per cent,” continued Johns. “While this indicates a generally good service level, the technology industry looks for ‘five nines’, or 99.999 per cent reliability in all forms of communication. Yet 1.2% of all emails took between three and ten minutes to arrive, while 3.4% took longer than 10 minutes to be delivered and thus were considered to be ‘lost’ in the eyes of users.
“If you think email is 100 per cent reliable, think again,” advised Johns. “Consumers and businesses seeking a reliable email service need to consider performance metrics when choosing a service provider, and certainly shouldn’t choose an ISP on price alone. What’s more, IT managers should set email performance standards with their chosen ISP before the service begins.”
“Epitiro’s ISP-I™ is an invaluable tool for ISPs and part of our portfolio of solutions that measure true customer experience on a day-to-day basis.”
The report, in PDF format, may be downloaded from www.epitiro.com/Company/downloads.html
Notes to Editors
For further editorial information or to arrange an interview please contact epitiro@pwkpr.com or telephone 020 7609 1900.
About Epitiro
Epitiro is the global leader in comparative broadband benchmarking providing customer experience insight to ISPs, media providers, multi-national corporations and government regulators.
VoIP, video and internet performance levels are benchmarked via Epitiro’s extensive deployment of ISP-I™ edge-based agents with results available through an on-line database access service or the regularly published Internet Performance Index™ report. The company also provides bespoke test and benchmarking solutions with products such as DataLite™, VocaLite™ and ISP-I™ with its full P2P and website analysis capabilities.
Clients such as BT, Orange, Virgin, Telecom New Zealand, Ofcom, Tiscali, Telefonica O2 and many others benefit from Epitiro’s coverage of fixed and wireless broadband performance.
Founded in 2000, Epitiro is the chief source of intelligence for the ISPA (Internet Service Provider Association) awards, and is based in Cardiff, Wales, UK.
DataLite™, VocaLite™, Internet Performance Index™, Reportal™ and ISP-I™ are trademarks of Epitiro Ltd. All rights reserved.
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