KEY POINTS:
New Zealand will soon have its first independent picture of broadband performance, and be able to see how much speeds improve after the Government's telecommunications reforms are introduced.
British internet monitoring company Epitiro has begun measuring the broadband performance of five of the biggest internet service providers - Telecom's Xtra, TelstraClear, ihug, Orcon and Slingshot.
Local head of Epitiro Michael Cranna said that although it was too early to draw any conclusions from the data, one ISP was clearly doing well with connection speeds "significantly above the others".
The monitoring would provide a "comprehensive" before, during and after picture of the effects of local loop unbundling.
"It seems just about every Kiwi knows about LLU. Well, this is the thing that will tell us whether it's working or not."
The Government announced plans to open up Telecom's network to competition - local loop unbundling - last May.
The Commerce Commission, Telecom and other internet companies are working on the technical details for sharing the network, with network access pricing to be determined by the commission this year.
Cranna said five specially configured PCs measured each internet company at secret locations in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. The sites were chosen to test the broadband performance of an exchange with a big base of residential and business users.
He said the complexity of the internet meant a number of measurements were made to get a fair reflection of an internet provider's service, including web page loading times, data loss, and email speed.
Orcon chief executive Scott Bartlett said his company would be reading with interest the quarterly reports provided by Epitiro.
"We're relatively comfortable with where we sit in terms of the performance of our network and our products, so I think that we'll all be waiting with bated breath to see what comes out in the first quarter."
Epitiro's British clients have real-time performance data displayed on giant plasma screens in their network and customer support centres.
Service quality problems can be spotted immediately, says Cranna.
A scaled-down version will soon be available for consumers to run on their own PCs, giving them information on the performance of their internet service provider as well sending data to Epitiro.
"Customers are often unsure if there is a problem, and if so, if it's their ISP's fault, the offshore internet running slow, or an issue with their PC, router or even the cabling in their home."
Keeping check
* Broadband services are being monitored by British company Epitiro.
* Quarterly reports will rank the top internet service providers.
* Epitiro monitors every major ISP in Britain, including British Telecom.
* A consumer-focused version of the system will be available to check broadband performance on individual PCs.
