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IDA subscribed to the various residential broadband service plans of the three major residential broadband service providers in Singapore, namely SingNet Broadband, StarHub MaxOnline and PacNet Broadband. These service plans range from 512 kbps to 30 Mbps. Measurements on throughput and latency were taken on a two hourly interval between 10 a.m. and 11.59 p.m. on a randomly selected working day at random locations across the island.
Internet connectivity within Singapore
This test measures the throughput and latency between an end-user's personal computer (PC) and the test servers planted at Internet Data Centres (IDCs) in Singapore, namely SingTel Expan IDC, StarHub IDC, PacNet IDC and 1-Net IDC. These IDCs are selected as the majority of local websites, including government ones, are hosted by these IDCs.
Internet connectivity out of Singapore (to US)
This test measures the throughput and latency between an end-user's PC and the test servers planted at Tier-1 IDCs in US in the states of Texas and California.
Throughput and latency are the two main factors affecting the performance of a broadband network. Usually expressed as kilobits/megabits per second (kbps/Mbps), throughput refers to the amount of data that is successfully transferred from one point of the network to another over a specified period of time. Latency refers to the time taken for a data packet to travel from one point of the network to another and for an acknowledgment to be returned. It is usually expressed as milliseconds (ms).
It measures the maximum throughput provided by the respective broadband service plans. It is measured by setting up multiple concurrent TCP sessions so as to fill up the access pipe to the maximum.
It measures the throughput provided by the respective broadband service plans for a single TCP session.
In the past when broadband was not widely available and the bandwidth was lower, most applications were designed to use only a single TCP session. As a result, web applications running on the TCP data transport standard were not able to make use of the entire bandwidth available to it. That is why the throughput numbers for a single TCP session does not match the maximum available throughput.
Many applications today, like Peer-to-Peer clients and Free Download Manager, get around this problem by running multiple TCP sessions concurrently to utilize more of the bandwidth. Many modern applications also make use of an alternative data transport standard called UDP which does not have the single session limitation.
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