A couple weeks ago, I wrote about the announcement of a suite of internet measurement tools released with Google’s support. I had observed that the test sites were overwhelmed with traffic.
A reader wrote me to say that he finally connected with Google’s Measurement Lab website and he has some suggestions for future developments.
M-Lab is promoted as the result of a small group of academics having been approached by Google to research ways to provide users with tools to test their broadband connections. It offers these tools:
- Network Diagnostic Tool: Test your connection speed and receive sophisticated diagnosis of problems limiting speed.
- Glasnost: Test whether BitTorrent is being blocked or throttled.
- Network Path and Application Diagnosis: Diagnose common problems that impact last-mile broadband networks.
- DiffProbe (coming soon): Determine whether an ISP is giving some traffic a lower priority than other traffic.
- NANO (coming soon): Determine whether an ISP is degrading the performance of a certain subset of users, applications, or destinations.
My disciple suggests, with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek, that researchers may want to work on the following:
- wwwglasnostic – think www + glasnost + diagnostic – It would be a test to determine whether a content provider on the internet has done a special deal with any government to block politically “sensitive” information. Don’t the Chinese people have a right to know the degree and form of censorship that is being implemented re: certain subjects?
- Ad$Probe – It would measure the amount of web advertising revenue that is being earned (and by whom) as a result of a user’s online wandering. Don’t internet users have a right to know how much money is being made as a result of their viewing or using anything online?
Any suggestions for other tools? Students – get working on your projects!