This is no news, but we now have evidence. Overall, North American broadband users are certainly luckier than their South Asia counterparts. (Please note exceptions!) All four North American broadband packages tested for the Oct 2009 release performed better than any of the nine South Asian ones for value for money in accessing an international server. In other words, the USA and Canadian users pay less for the same amount of bandwidth even ignoring PPP.
LIRNEasia responded to Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission’s (BTRC) Consultation Paper ‘Standardization of Quality of Service Parameters for Broadband Internet Services’ based on the broadband research and testing done in Dhaka, New Delhi, Chennai and Colombo. We said (a) broadband is above 256 kbps, not 128 kbps; (b) minimum bandwidth requirements should be valid beyond the ISP domain; (c) operators should maintain predetermined contention ratios; (d) bandwidth ultilisation should be above 75% on average; (e) latency < 85 ms for local and <300 ms for international and (f) user surveys are important but should be supplemented by user testing which gives a more objective measure. LIRNEasia also offered assistance if BTRC plans user testing. Downloads: Consultation Paper and LIRNEasia’s Response.