Measurement Lab Promotes Internet Transparency from Broadband Carriers

Consumers struggle with assessing their network traffic and usage patterns.  Add into the scenario the complexity of modern day networking equipment and even professional network engineers can make errors on network traffic performance/management.  The New American Foundation's Open Technology Institute, PlanetLab, Google Inc. and academic researchers have produced an open, distributed server platform for researchers, consumers and businesses to investigate their Broadband carriers/connections.

The project/Web site will provide numerous servers in various geographical regions for anyone to do testing on network connections.  It will aggregate the data and be used by researchers to demonstrate the quality and transparency of Broadband carriers network management. M-Lab has tools to test speed, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) traffic blocking/shaping, application and network path diagnosis and more.

One particular hot topic in the news is with Google vs Comcast and Cox blocking the BitTorrent protocol.  The use of an application named Glasnost can be used to determine if BitTorrent protocol (TCP port 6881) is being blocked.  Comcast appeared at the FCC February 12, 2008 with implications that Comast blocked "excessive" traffic during heavy usage periods.  However, the use of Glasnost as of March 2009 demonstrates that both Comcast and Cox are consistently blocking BitTorrent at all times of the day and week. 

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9871287-38.html

http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/retrieve.cgi?native_or_pdf=pdf&id_document=6519840991

http://broadband.mpi-sws.org/transparency/results/#when_block

Broadband carriers are rushing to grab market share with rise of IPTV being critical.  However, the ISPs generally try to keep their the network operation a secret to consumers/public.  Now consumers can generate a layer of transparency in the ISPs with or without their participation.  We encourage you to participate at all levels possible via the M-Labs tools at: http://measurementlab.net

Broadband carriers actually have an opprotunity to faciliate customer service and reduce some of the issues that arise in this litigious society.  If they take the initiative to provide their own tools for network inspection or even extend an open invitation to assist consumers in testing and correcting network issues, they can reduce costs often spent in hiding certain practices and fighting class action suites like the text message price fixing matter:

http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2008/09/13/lawsuit_filed_over_text_message_rates/

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/28/business/28digi.html?_r=1&ref=business

Clearly, consumers will continue to get wiser and more sophisticated in technology usage.