[*] [Fwd: Tool for measuring network neutrality]

Thu Nov 23 09:39:16 CST 2006

Here are two interesting ideas which address issues which we have discussed a 
lot at our meetings.

-- Bill

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [CAnet - news] Tool for measuring network neutrality
Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2006 09:53:11 -0500
From: Bill St.Arnaud <bill.st.arnaud at canarie.ca>
Reply-To: bill.st.arnaud at canarie.ca
To: news at canarie.ca

For more information on this item please visit my blog at
http://billstarnaud.blogspot.com/
-------------------------------------------

[Here a couple of articles on possible tools for measuring whether network
operators are violating network neutrality principles. Thanks to Gordon Cook
for the pointer-- BSA]

http://neti.gatech.edu/

NETI at home is an open-source software package, named after the widely popular
SETI at home, that collects network performance statistics from end-systems. It
has been written for and tested on the Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and Solaris
operating systems, with testing for other operating systems to be completed
soon. NETI at home is designed to run on end-user machines and will collect
various statistics about Internet performance. These statistics will then be
sent to a server at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech),
where they will be collected and made publicly available. We believe that
this tool will give researchers much needed data on the end-to-end
performance of the Internet, as measured by end-users. Our basic approach is
to sniff packets sent from and received by the host and infer performance
metrics based on these observed packets. NETI at home users are able to select
a privacy level that will determine what types of data will be gathered, and
what will not be reported. NETI at home is designed to be an unobtrusive
software system that runs quietly in the background with little or no
intervention by the user, and using few resources.

http://blog.tomevslin.com/2006/11/hope_for_intern.html

Hope for Internet Quality (and Neutrality) Measurement

Fellow My Way blogger Eric Hernaez recently posted the important news that
Cisco and Brix are proposing an extension to the SIP standard which allows
devices to be put in a loopback mode in order to measure the quality of
their connection to an Internet service.  Standards are usually pretty dull
stuff but this proposal could be a very big deal - even if the IETF, to
which it was submitted, takes its usual forever to adopt it.

Although Cisco and Brix propose the extension in order to give VoIP, real
time text, and video over IP providers a way to diagnose customer problems,
the potential is much greater than just these very worthwhile applications.
This technology, if widely deployed, can be the answer to two vexing
problems: 1) how do consumers cut through the hype to compare the quality of
broadband providers; and 2) how do we know if ISPs are violating the
principals of network neutrality (these principals are not enshrined in any
law or regulation), perhaps to advantage their own applications over those
provided by competitors.

As Eric points out:

"The Cisco collaboration is a major coup for Brix. With the industry leader
adopting this method of link testing, it will become a de facto standard
whatever happens in the IETF. I would be surprised if other ATA vendors [nb.
besides Cisco] did not quickly fall in line. Look for softclients and
web-based tools to implement the draft in the near future."

The devices which implement SIP are in almost every home or office which
uses VoIP.  SIP is built into routers which have VoIP capability and into
cheap little VoIP boxes called ATAs (what connects your phone to the
Internet if you have a service like Vonage).  SIP devices are literally
everywhere and spreading.  SIP is also implemented as software in many
IP-based VoIP applications.  A new generation of mobile phones uses SIP when
connected to a WiFi hotspot.

An article in last Saturday's NY Times says:

"Determining the speeds consumers are actually getting is tough to measure.
Cable speeds can vary if many people in one neighborhood are online at the
same time, like after dinner. Access over phone lines can be slower if the
customer is far from the switching office, where the Internet signal
originates."

The article also says:

"In many cases, consumer advocates and industry analysts said, customers do
not get the maximum promised speed, or anywhere near it, from their cable
and digital subscriber line connections. Instead, the phrase 'up to' refers
to speeds attainable under ideal conditions, like when a D.S.L. user is near
the phone company's central switching office."

Both of these assertions are true.  There are many other factors which also
affect the bandwidth (aka speed), latency, and jitter experienced by a
particular user at a particular place.  Up until now (despite the valiant
efforts of some online connection test sites) it's been impractical to
gather enough comparable data to assign grades to the various providers of
broadband service.

OK.  Fast forward.  Now we've got millions of devices distributed throughout
the country and the world which can cooperate in automated measurement of
bandwidth, latency, and jitter between themselves and some host service
somewhere. Let's assume that the owners of these devices (you and me and all
our friends) consent to have a trusted organization put the devices in
feedback mode every once in a while for a few seconds for the purpose of
gathering some data.

The cure for lots of variables is lots of data points.  What is almost
impossible to judge anecdotally becomes very tractable to measurement if
it's measured enough times in enough places.  "Individual performance may
vary" but it will become very easy to know which broadband providers perform
how well where and doing what.  It'll be much easier to know if you want to
buy your broadband access from the cableco, telco, or the new WISP (wireless
ISP) down the street.  When someone advertises "speeds up to..", it'll be
possible to know how often that speed or 95% of it is actually obtained.
With enough data we can distinguish between websites which are slow to
respond and networks which are slow to deliver the response.  Most packets
traverse multiple networks; millions of triangulations on packet delivery
performed by millions of devices should show which networks slow packets
down or lose them and which speed them on their way.

I proposed a citizen journalism project which started with the development
of software which could be run by millions of volunteers to determine both
network performance and possible violations of Internet Neutrality.  Maybe
software developed to this new SIP extension fills the bill.  I'll be
interested to learn more.

If it does do all I hope and if this capability ends up standard in routers
and ATAs, it solves at least part of the development problem and much of the
distribution problem for the citizen journalism exercise.  For technical
reasons, it is much better to run the monitoring software on a router
connected directly to the broadband provider's modem than on a PC -
especially if that PC has a WiFi connection.

SIP updates can often be accomplished by a firmware download so it's
conceivable that this capability can be added to existing routers and ATAs
in a routine maintenance release or upgrade (note:  I haven't done the
technical work to know whether there may be some obstacle to this).  It's
also possible that SIP capability will be added to non-VoIP routers and
devices specifically to enable this loopback capability.

We may be able to compare networks AND look for non-neutral network
connections sooner than I thought.

-------------------------------------
To SUBSCRIBE:
send a blank e-mail message to
news-join at canarie.ca

To UNSUBSCRIBE:
send a blank email message to
news-leave at canarie.ca
-------------------------------------

These news items and comments are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect
those  of the CANARIE board or management.

-----------
Bill.St.Arnaud at canarie.ca
Bill.St.Arnaud at gmail.com
www.canarie.ca/~bstarn
skype: pocketpro
SkypeIn: +1 614 441-9603

_______________________________________________
news mailing list
news at canarie.ca
http://lists.canarie.ca/mailman/listinfo/news