Israeli Internet - ISP Comparison Chart

Copyright © by John Neystadt 1995-97.
Please read the disclaimer.

Isrtaeli Internet Survey, May 1997

The Chart

Please read the footnotes, commenting each criteria.

The rank given in rightmost columns is based on other parameters in the table. Note that bandwidth itself is not important, providing that international lines are not oversubscribed (as in ILAN's case). 1st means 1st place. 2nd means 2nd place. 3rd means 3rd place.

Provider International Capacity (M/Bit)1 Optical / Satellite2 Direct European Connectivity3 IIX Connection4 Infrastructure Quality "Israeli Internet" Rank (Smallest best)
Multiple International Lines (Backup) Has a Single Point of Failure5
ACTCOM 0.75 Satellite No Yes No Yes 6
AquaNet 1.5 Satellite No Yes No Yes 8
2nd!IBM 4.75 Mixed Satellite/ Optical Yes Yes Yes Yes 2
ILAN6 1.5 (via IBM) Mixed Satellite/ Optical No Yes Yes Yes Non Applicable
Infolink ?? Satellite No No No Yes 9
3rd!InterNet Gold 5.65 Satellite No Yes Yes No* 3
NetMedia 0.9 Satellite No Yes Yes Yes 4
1st!NetVision 9.5 Optical No Yes Yes No* 1
Shani 0.5 Satellite No Yes No Yes 7
Trendline 1.5 Optical No Yes No Yes 5

* Internet Gold and NetVision is the only ones who has redundant USA POPs (Points of Presence), thus achieving true redundancy of their backbones.

1 International Capacity

The numbers given are summary of International Bandwidth of the provider. These numbers are not way to judge provider, rather a clue for its size. Usually the larger the provider is the better is the overall service.

2 Optical vs. Satellite

Every communication line has 2 parameters to compare with: bandwidth and latency. Bandwidth is the amount of information, the line is capable of trasfering in a given amount of time. Latency is the time that it takes for information to travel from one end to another. Compare communication line to a water pipe. The wider a pipe is, the more water can run through it - that's bandwidth. The faster the water flows through pipe, the less time it will be delayed inside it - that's latency.

Optical lines have very low latency. Latency of an optical line from Israel to US is 150ms. Satellite lines are at least 4 times slower, so the typical latency will be 600-900 ms. Note also, that an average latency of the phone line, used when connecting with modem, is 250-300 ms.

So optical vs. satellite is one of the most important criteria. So when your ISP sells you his "fast" lines, ask him not for the bandwidth, but whether they are optical or satellite.

Why does latency mater? When you click a hyperlink in Netscape, it takes some time to resolve the address of the new site, to connect to it and to download the page. The smaller latency is, the faster this is accomplished. So, the latency is relevant when interactive Internet applications, such as WWW, Telnet or Voice are concerned. However for large data transfers, like FTP or WWW download, this parameter is not important at all.

What about bandwidth? It is not important for you, unless... provider has too many users, in such cases lines become saturated. Imagine a sink of water with a pipe going down. Until a certain limit, all the water will go through the sink to the pipe, without any problems, but if you open the water tap too much, the water will start accumulating in the sink, and reach the pipe with a big delay. If you open the tap even more, the water will get out of the sink and some of it will be lost. This is a very close model of a communication system. So, if the provider doesn't have enough bandwidth, your information will be delayed and some of it may even be lost.

3 European vs. USA only connectivity

The situation on the Israeli market is such, that it is almost twice cheaper to get a line to USA than to Europe. For that reason, all ISPs establish their connectivity to the Global Internet via USA. However, in such cases, in order to get to Europe, all the information has to go over the ocean twice. This introduces a much larger delay than a direct line to Europe would.

4 IIX Connectivity

IIX is an acronym for Israeli Internet eXchange. When inter ISPs, intra-Israel, traffic is concerned, if both locations are interconnected via IIX the traffic flows via local cheap and fast lines. However if one isn't connected to IIX, the traffic flows a few times over the ocean, like in Europe vs. USA situation, to get to its destination.

5 Single Point of Failure

This technical therm means that the failure of any single communication line, computer, logical service, router, electricity line, or other device would not cause malfunction of the whole system. Establishing the infrastructure with all backbone devices backed up, costs more money, but dramatically reduces downtime of "no service".

6 ILAN

ILAN is the IsraeLi Academic Network, which interconnects all Israeli Universities and some colleges and schools. Its size makes it comparable with some of the largest commercial providers. However commercial bodies are not allowed to connect to it.

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Last modified 2:09PM 5/27/97 Created by John Neystadt