The GLA has deployed iTrinegy's INE for Windows system to run performance tests on applications so that users receive a good experience. The tests cover web apps, client/server systems, Citrix-delivered apps and voice over IP (VoIP).

Brian Arnold, a systems integration engineer at the GLA, said: "These applications need to work in a variety of different network environments, including over the WAN, over Wi-Fi and through 3G mobile networks. To understand the impact on our end users we made the decision that we needed to test our applications and systems in controlled and repeatable replications of these environments."

The GLA's iTrinegy system works on Windows XP, Vista, 7 or Windows Server platforms and allows some or all of the applications running on a Windows system to "experience" realistic external network conditions when being accessed, like bandwidth, loss, latency and jitter.

Last month on Royal Mail not regularly monitoring its network and applications, although Royal Mail has not confirmed the reasons for the difficulties.