Want to know if you're actually getting what you're paying your ISP for?
If you are, join the club. The problem is that it it's been far from easy to get a handle on how your ISP deals with various kinds of traffic. That may become an easier job now that Google is launching what it calls Measurement Lab (M-Lab), an open platform that researchers and consumers can use to access its new Internet performance measurement tools.
"Researchers are already developing tools that allow users to, among other things, measure the speed of their connection, run diagnostics, and attempt to discern if their ISP is blocking or throttling particular applications," said Vint Cerf, Google's chief Internet evangelist, and Stephen Stuart, Google's principal engineer, in a blog post. "These tools generate and send some data back-and-forth between the user's computer and a server elsewhere on the Internet. Unfortunately, researchers lack widely-distributed servers with ample connectivity. This poses a barrier to the accuracy and scalability of these tools."
To tackle the problem, Google announced late Wednesday that it will host the tools on 37 servers in the U.S. and Europe. The tools are designed to help users try to figure out what might be impairing their broadband speed, as well as find out if BitTorrent is being blocked or throttled by their ISPs.
"Seems like the intention behind this is to give consumers a way to keep tabs on their provider and make sure that they're getting what they're paying for in terms of speed," said Dan Olds, principal analyst with the Gabriel Consulting Group. "Also, with these tools, consumers will supposedly be able to tell if particular high bandwidth applications, like BitTorrent, are being constrained by their ISP. So if an ISP is limiting video downloads, for example, consumers can use the Google tool, figure it out, and start a huge outcry, putting pressure on the ISP to stop."
Just last month, an analyst with ties to the telecom industry released a report calling Google a bandwidth hog. Scott Cleland , president of Precursor, a research firm bankrolled by telecom heavyweights like AT&T and Verizon Communications, reported that Google uses 21 times more bandwidth than it pays for.
Google was quick to fire back. Richard Whitt, Google's Washington telecom and media counsel, noted in a blog post that Cleland is "not exactly a neutral party." Whitt also claimed that the analyst had made methodological and factual errors.
Olds noted that the new measurement platform is another salvo in the war between content providers, like Google, and network providers.