Decision makers ranging from operators to policymakers need accurate, representative, intuitive, and repeatable measurements of Internet connectivity. Policymakers rely on data about Internet speeds to inform regulation and investment decisions. Human rights activists monitor the state of Internet reachability from a wide range of countries and Internet service providers and report broadly on those findings. Application providers, Internet service providers, and network operators all need to know the performance that a user is experiencing to allow them to better tune their services. These decision makers require an infrastructure that can measure Internet connectivity from the perspectives of typical users. Towards this goal, this project will develop an infrastructure to gather reliable, repeatable measurements from vantage points that reflect the connectivity experienced by home Internet users. In addition to yielding valuable data about characteristics of Internet connectivity, the infrastructure will also serve as a platform for researchers to perform repeatable experiments and gather data on the Internet as seen from the home.
By developing software that will run on commercially available home gateway routers and which will allow researchers to securely dynamicly load sandboxed applications, this project will develop an open network measurement observatory for researchers, operators, and policymakers. The project will combine elements of the BISMark and Wireless@Home measurement projects with the Seattle testbed in order to provide researchers with the ability to install sandboxed measurement applications on the home gateway.
