AOL says its 9.0 software surfs faster than rivals

America Online (AOL) touted the speed of its latest Internet access software AOL 9.0 Optimized Tuesday, saying that it downloaded Web pages faster than its rivals in a sponsored test.

AOL said that 9.0 Optimized, which uses the company’s TopSpeed compression and caching technologies, downloaded Web pages 21 percent to 65 percent faster than other U.S. dial-up Internet access providers. The study was conducted by VeriTest, the testing division of Lionbridge Technologies. AOL said that it commissioned the test but described it as “an independent third-party study.”

AOL’s speediness is due to “Web accelerator” technologies such as Web page caching and the compression of Web pages and elements, the company said. Rivals such as EarthLink also offer Web accelerator technologies like those in EarthLink Plus.

According to the VeriTest study, AOL 9.0 was faster than EarthLink Plus, completing 89.8 percent of downloads within 10 seconds, compared to Earthlink Plus’ 80.4 percent completion rate.

A spokesman for EarthLink said Tuesday that without looking at the methodology for the AOL-sponsored test it was hard for the company to comment. However, he did say that EarthLink was first to market with its Web accelerator product, which is now being rolled into the company’s EarthLink Unlimited dial-up service.

Both accelerated AOL and EarthLink services came out ahead of MSN, which completed 34.1 percent of downloads in 10 seconds, and NetZero, which completed 29.6 percent of downloads in the time period, according to VeriTest.

A handful of Internet access providers have been rolling out accelerated versions of their services in the last year, to give dial-up users a speed boost. EarthLink introduced its Plus version in March and United Online Inc. followed shortly afterwards with its NetZero HiSpeed offering.

The study comes amid AOL’s 9.0 push and while the company is faced with the challenge of growing subscriber numbers, which have been slipping in recent quarters due to revved up competition from cheaper alternatives and broadband players.

Also Tuesday, the Dulles, Virginia, company said that AOL 9.0 Optimized is now available for AOL members using the Windows 98 operating system or higher.