December 19, 2017 What Happened To NTT’s B-Flets ‘Best Effort’ Internet Service?
What Happened to NTT’s B-Flets ‘Best Effort’ Internet Service?
If you have ever been to North Asia (Japan, Korea), you have been thrilled by the incredibly fast Internet. Both Japan and Korea have become famous for giving users plenty of bandwidth… that means high speeds.
Japan’s near-monopoly telco carrier, NTT used it’s heavy investment in fiber optic networks to transition from ISDN digital telephone lines and dial up internet to high speed fiber to the home (FTTH). For 4-6,000 yen/month, people could sign up for Internet services that gave users the ability to surf the net at up to 100 mbps. It was fantastic, but there is a catch, it’s a ‘best effort’ service. Best effort means that your speeds depend on the usage of the people around you. Therefore, if the company or person next doors is downloading movies, your Internet is going going to choke (slow down). It is going to be really slow. For browsing websites, it just becomes slow for calling someone over these fluctuating services it means the voice quality will vary.
Why Has NTT’s Bflets Internet Gotten So Bad?
In the last year in Japan, NTT’s Bflets service has gotten really slow. It has become nearly impossible for companies to run their phones over these best effort Internet connections. What happened?
The answer to that question is very easy. NTT has oversold their capacity to too many users. Its like connecting a hose to a water faucet in your garden. If you connect one sprinkler, the water flow is fine. But if you connect 10 sprinklers to the same faucet, you will have a much smaller amount water going to each sprinkler.
What Can You Do About Bad Internet?
If you want better Internet speeds consistently, you need to sign up for a service with an SLA or a service level agreement. An Internet Service Provider (ISP) with an SLA guarantees that speed. Going back to the garden example, the provider is guaranteeing that your faucet (internet connection) is only connected to your water sprinkler.
If your internet is for business use this is our recommendation. Do not use best effort services. Especially if your phones run over the net. Make sure that your ISP gives you a promised speed at all times.