Propel signs StarNet

Intravartolo tested Propel and products from three other companies: SlipStream Data, Transfinity, and Artera Group. Intravartolo, who managed manufacturing processes at Motorola, said that he wanted to obtain accurate data. "Motorola's manufacturing plants have stringent statistical process controls," said Intravartolo. He wanted the same for StarNet MegaPOP. He added, "we've realized that when we make statements to our ISP customers that then get filtered to the public, there's always someone who wants to challenge what we say. I'm an engineer. I wanted to substantiate our claims."

The company spent "about $100,000" on testing. It hired an educator and statistician from Motorola University, Rembert Stokes, to design a series of tests that would provide valid data. It gave testers identical machines and sent them through various cities, dialing in from different locations to avoid any bias that might occur if the company tested performance only from its own NOC. The results, published in a 25 page white paper, are available to StarNet MegaPOP's ISP customers.

Obtaining valid data is an obsession of Propel's Murray, too. He said that there are numerous potential sources of error, many of them simple. For example, if you test several different programs sequentially on one computer by accessing unusual Web pages, the first program you test will be at a disadvantage, as subsequent programs will be able to use the browser's cache.

Furthermore, the same Web page is different each time it is accessed, because different banner ads are displayed each time. A complex ad can take considerably more time to load than a more simple ad.

Intravartolo said that the four products he tested were close, and each had at least one unique feature, but that in his opinion, Propel was the best, providing "up to five times" the speed of dialup.

He added that his own network has an inherent speed advantage over his competitors. "We've done similar testing on our network, and our accelerated network provides a 30 percent performance boost over other networks," Intravartolo said. "Our network, with the MegaSPEED service built into it, is 30 percent faster than other networks using Propel's hosted servers, or an ISP's own hosted servers."

Intravartolo is pleased to see innovation return to the dialup space. "When the cable and DSL boom hit in the late nineties," he said, "R&D slowed. But you can realize real improvements with caching. Also, desktop clients are an order of magnitude more powerful than they were. Compression algorithms are also improving."

His company's network consists of modems using V.90 dialup modem standards, not newer V.92 technology. "We tested V.92 equipment," said Intravartolo, "but with no perceptible speed difference, and a large number of dialup users already using a second phone line, it did not seem to be worth a forklift replacement of modem cards. This is more than just replacing software. We did see faster connect times, but are people willing to pay for that?"

In contrast, his company's market research says that people are at least willing to try accelerated dialup. "If you ask subscribers whether they would pay $5 to $7 and realize throughput over 100 Kbps," said Intravartolo, "most say, 'I'd try it.' We are geared toward the masses. Anything that needs a truck roll is something we're not interested in. If you can speed up analog, people will ask, 'why should I bother with a DSL connection?' It's an interesting discussion we had with end users."

Intravartolo said he expects his ISP customers to find less resistance to the change of accelerated dialup than to DSL and cable. "Most of the ISPs using wholesale dialup services charge between $9.95 and $19.99 per month," he said. "We believe that charging for the service is viable, and United Online and EarthLink are already charging more for it. An ISP charging users $14.95 per month today can move to $19.95 for accelerated dialup. Marketing success in mass markets comes from taking what people do today and making it better. When we went from 28.8 Kbps to 33.6 it was they same thing they had been doing, only better. If you force people to make no changes, you'll find no resistance to change. DSL and cable are quite a deviation from that way of thinking."

Pricing and availability
Propel Accelerator 3.0 is in beta testing now. One large CLEC and several ISPs are already in tests, and Murray says 35 more ISPs have applied to join the beta test. The product will be released in June, 2003. Pricing was not disclosed.

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