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| [November 12, 2008] |
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Comcast Digital Voice Far Ahead of Other VoIP Providers in Audio Quality, Reports New Keynote Systems Study
SAN FRANCISCO --(Business Wire)-- Keynote Competitive Research, the industry analysis group of Keynote(R) Systems (Nasdaq:KEYN), today announced the results of its latest VoIP Service Provider Study, which evaluates how end users experience the reliability and audio clarity of leading voice service providers. The study compares the relative performance of AT&T landline service or POTS (plain old telephone service) with six broadband VoIP providers (AT&T CallVantage, EarthLink trueVoice, Lingo, Packet8, Verizon VoiceWing and Vonage) and two cable voice service providers (Time Warner Digital Phone and Comcast Digital Voice) for the month of October, 2008 by collecting data from calls made from residential locations in New York and San Francisco. Overall, reliability is improving slightly, however audio quality is significantly different from the previous study.
"We've been conducting VoIP studies for more than three years and have seen significant trends develop, such as serious disparity in reliability and audio performance between VoIP services on managed networks and those that rely on existing broadband home network connections," said Ken Harker, senior consultant at Keynote. "While conditions are dramatically improved for Comcast Digital Voice and Verizon VoiceWing customers, the best that other consumers can hope for is merely tolerable audio quality."
Results Overview:
Reliability
Provider Reliability Points Rank
---------------------------------------------------------[FEED_CR
LF]AT&T Landline 996 1
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Time Warner Digital Phone 925 2
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Verizon VoiceWing 872 3
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Audio Quality
Provider Reliability Points Rank
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Comca
st Digital Voice 901 1
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Verizon VoiceWing 609 2
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AT&T
Landline 506 3
-------------------------------------------------
[FEED_PR
E_END]
Read an abstract of Keynote's VoIP study online: http://www.keynote.com/docs/kcr/Voice_W6_CIStudy.pdf
With analysts predicting strong growth in the market, it is imperative for VoIP companies to perfect their offering now to capture new users and satisfy existing customers. Consumers and commercial customers will be looking to VoIP service as an opportunity to save money in this economy. The VoIP services with the best end user experience will be positioned to take advantage of current economic pressures.
VoIP Service Provider Study, Wave 6 Competitive Results:
The Wave 6 VoIP Service Provider study evaluated traditional landline service provider AT&T VoIP providers AT&T, CallVantage, Lingo, Packet8, EarthLink, trueVoice, Verizon, VoiceWing and Vonage; and cable voice services Comcast Digital Voice and Time Warner Digital Phone. Keynote analyzed the audio quality and reliability, key performance indicators that affect the end user experience across these VoIP providers, as well as traditional phone service for comparison.
Overall Best VoIP Service Providers
Keynote ranked VoIP Service Providers in two categories: Reliability and Audio Quality. The Service Availability, Call Completion, Average Answer Time, and Dropped Audio performance factors all contribute to the Reliability ranking. This high-level ranking identifies which voice service providers are providing the most reliable end user experience. The Audio Quality ranking is computed as an aggregate of the performance factors related to audio clarity and audio delay. This high-level ranking identifies which service providers are providing the most reliable and best sounding VoIP service. Each ranking is computed based on 1000 total points available as the best case, or winning result.
Reliability Overview
In Wave 6 of Keynote's VoIP Service Provider Study, Time Warner's Digital Phone maintains its second place ranking behind landline service, and the remaining providers have generally increased their scores as compared to the Wave 5 study.
Audio Quality Overview
In Wave 4 and again in Wave 5, Keynote reported that the landline service outperformed the competition when it comes to delivering great sounding call audio with minimal delay. In Wave 6, we see digital return to the top with Comcast and Verizon providing better audio quality than landline.
General Observations
-- The best providers always deliver dial tone and connect the call to the number dialed in a timely fashion.
-- Only one of the providers in the study failed to provide dial tone 99.9% of the time or better.
-- All providers had very small percentages of calls with dropped audio, but only two providers had zero calls with dropped audio.
-- One VoIP provider required two seconds more than any other voice provider to connect calls after dialing.
-- Most providers had slightly more audio delay and slightly lower MOS in Wave 6 as compared to Wave 5.
-- Eight of the nine providers in the study had a better call completion rate in Wave 6 than was evidenced in the Wave 5 results.
Methodology
To perform the study, Keynote uses its commercially available Voice Perspective(R) product to conduct calls, and perform wave-form analysis of the results. Each call includes the transmission of a reference audio file specifically created with characteristics appropriate to voice audio quality measurement.
Study Availability
An overview report, which reveals general industry trends and highlights the performance of the best voice service providers, is available for VoIP providers and enterprises choosing a VoIP service. The report identifies general areas of challenges and opportunities that have the maximum impact on customer experience.
Details of the report analyzing each of the nine service providers and each of the ten performance factors in greater depth, with analysis of the data across service providers, last-mile network connections and geography, can also be obtained by contacting Keynote. Armed with this intelligence, IT Managers can tune specific aspects of their VoIP service to provide better performance to customers than their competition.
In addition, Keynote can provide custom analysis to help align operations teams with customer experience enhancement goals. To learn more about Voice Perspective for Service Providers view: www.keynote.com/products/voip_and_streaming/voip_quality/voice_ perspective_sp.html. (Due to its length, this URL may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser's address field. Remove the extra space if one exists.)
About Keynote Voice Perspective
Voice service providers can leverage the competitive insight provided through Keynote's Voice Perspective(R) for Service Providers for on-going real time monitoring of voice quality from representative locations to improve their call performance in target markets. Combining Keynote's voice monitoring services and competitive insights with internal network monitoring tools will allow providers to adopt an outbound focus and assure a quality experience for the end user. Keynote can design an ongoing voice quality measurement and monitoring implementation for multiple markets including multiple competitors. Service providers can leverage Keynote's independent assessment to align their resources and infrastructure investments with customer acquisition and retention goals.
About Keynote
Keynote Systems (Nasdaq "KEYN") is the global leader in on-demand test & measurement solutions for continuously improving the online experience. For over a decade, Keynote has been providing measurement data and testing capabilities that allow companies to understand and improve their customers' online and mobile experience. Keynote has four test and measurement businesses: Web performance, mobile quality, streaming & VoIP, and customer experience/UX.
Known as The Mobile and Internet Performance Authority(TM), Keynote has a market-leading infrastructure of 2,600 measurement computers and mobile devices in over 240 locations around the world. Keynote's 2,800 customers represent top Internet and mobile companies including American Express, Dell, Disney, eBay, E*TRADE, Expedia, Microsoft, SonyEricsson, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon, Vodafone and YouTube.
Keynote Systems, Inc. is headquartered in San Mateo, California and can be reached at www.keynote.com or by phone in the U.S. at 1-800-KEYNOTE.
Keynote, The Internet Performance Authority and Perspective are registered trademarks and The Mobile and Internet Performance Authority are trademarks of Keynote Systems, Inc. (C) 2008 Keynote Systems, Inc.
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