Test Utilizes Open Source NDT Technology Developed by the Internet2 Community

Internet2 applauds the Federal Communications Commission's launch of a "beta" consumer broadband test on broadband.gov which provides consumers an easy way to test the performance of their home Internet connection.

Gary Bachula, Internet2 Vice President of External Relations, said, "We are pleased that the FCC is providing consumers an easy way to measure the quality of their broadband connections. Through this effort, the FCC is actively contributing to a public pool of broadband performance data that will help guarantee consumers receive the level of service they are expecting from Internet service providers. Even more important to our future, this test is an essential first step in assuring more open, more transparent broadband networks - which are critical to supporting the next wave of transformational Internet applications."

The FCC test utilizes the Network Diagnostic Tool (NDT), an Internet2-community developed technology that measures a user’s download and upload speeds, latency and jitter as well as detects other network host problems —all of which are critical factors that contribute to the Internet’s ability to support applications like Voice over IP, videoconferencing, and streaming media. NDT is made available to the FCC through Measurement Lab (M-Lab), a project created in 2009 that provides a platform for network researchers to deploy and use open source tools for actively measuring and understanding Internet performance statistics.

M-Lab was launched by researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Internet2, the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems, Northwestern University, and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, with the support of the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute, the PlanetLab Consortium, and Google Inc. You can learn more about Measurement Lab at: http://www.measurementlab.net