Google Wants To Help People Check Their Broadband Connection For Traffic Shaping
from the name-and-shame-is-the-game dept
Well, well, well… With Cox getting aggressive with traffic shaping, it looks like Google is trying to give users the tools to find out what their ISP is actually doing to their broadband connection. The company has teamed up with the New America Foundation and Planet Lab to offer a platform for tools to measure what’s happening on internet connections. The obvious thinking: the easier it is for anyone to recognize that their broadband connection is being tinkered with, the more likely an outcry is raised, and the provider is pushed to back down (at least on the more egregious practices — such as what eventually happened with Comcast’s traffic shaping).
It will be interesting to see where this goes, or how useful it really becomes. Without meaningful competition in the broadband space, it seems like ISPs are willing to risk some consumer anger — knowing they really don’t have many other options. Still, it does suggest one more reason why specific net neutrality regulations may be premature. Let’s see if providing more info along with open tools can help keep ISPs more reasonable in their network management practices.
Filed Under: tools, traffic shaping
Companies: google
Comments on “Google Wants To Help People Check Their Broadband Connection For Traffic Shaping”
the height of irony... .
… is that traffic shaping is stopping me from visiting these sites….
Google trying to make the Internet more transparent
The more open, neutral, and transparent the net is, the more successful everyone will be online, the bigger the web will get, and most importantly for Google…the more ad’s they’ll be able to serve.
Re: Google trying to make the Internet more transparent
Well it just seems more and more like Google’s interests and the consumers’ interests overlap, doesn’t it? Strange… Keep running those Google searches for our righteous benefactor! Hah…
measurementlab.net seems to be down.
measurementlab.net seems to be down.
The is not responding
The site with the tools is http://www.measurementlab.net/
It seems that this is a major concern to a lot of people, because these tools are a little overloaded. The site did not respond the first two times I tried it. When I actually got to one of the tools, the first out of 3 servers for the tool had an approx. 8 HOUR wait. The least busy server, the one I am queued in, has about 1.25 hour wait.
wow.
Re: The site is not responding
Fixed Subject
Also, they are using java applets. They didn’t load in Firefox, but that might just be my machine.
Not Down
Just a bit overwhelmed. I got it with a bit of persistence
So is MeasurmentLabs.net down, or does my ISP not want me visiting it
Very Nice
Just verified Time Warner is running clean, but I already suspected this.
Not to get off of the subject, but I have noticed an increase of screeners on all torrent trackers, you gotta wonder if the studios are purposely putting these out there as promotional bait to increase theater “goership”, that’s a new word.
Re: Very Nice
Nah, every year this happens around awards time since the studios have to release more screeners to judges for their consideration.
The bittorrent test is worthless, I know for a fact that Bell are throttling to 30kb/s (they announced publicly, and have experienced it) yet it claims my traffic is not shaped…
I hope other tests are more reliable…
Still hammered
I can get the initial page, but nothing after that.
kodos Google for the effort, Power to the people!
Slashdotted
Unfortunately, most of the test sites seem to be flooded with activity… these tools have been mentioned on slashdot.org, need I say more?
i am disapointed in TechDirt
i posted the link to google’s anti-trafic shaping tool in ur article concerning cox trafic shaping.
with he subject: google back in the game.
now i see you have an article about it and my comment in http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090128/0123343551.shtml
isn’t there any more
Re: i am disapointed in TechDirt
im really sry about this it seems i posted my comment in an other article plus it seems it was after you had mentioned it here.
So what if the ISP’s are throttling? With no net neutrality laws, you can’t do shit to them. And besides, with the government in their back pocket, even with laws they would be untouchable.
Forget torrents the real problem throttling presents is to those of us who enjoy watching videos online. The truth is that some providers like Comcast are afraid at the real threat that sites like Hulu are posing as many customers are ditching cable subscriptions for online video. The amount of content online is larger and easier to search than cable…
Top 20 Video Sites:
http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/video-sites
Throttling
Throttling isn’t always bad. Cox ‘claims’ to only want to apply throttling against FTP/P2P/Bulk-transfers only during times of congestion. This is supposively so all that over-subscription don’t lag your video-games/video-streams/latency-sensitive applications during peak hours.
OMG QQ, I can’t play my games at 5pm because of masssive lag
OMG QQ, my p2p is slow around 5pm, but my games run fine
won
dfgdf
Travel Help
Is traffic shaping has any danger because of using the broadband? Is it really?
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Travel Help
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The obvious thinking: the easier it is for anyone to recognize that their broadband connection is being tinkered with, the more likely an outcry is raised, and the provider is pushed to back down (at least on the more egregious practices irs problems | income tax attorneys
Google Wants To Help People Check Their Broadband Connection For Traffic Shaping
Great ++
Re: Google Wants To Help People Check Their Broadband Connection For Traffic Shaping
rhinoplasty
Thats not very viable!
Thats not very viable!
Muje ek samsung galaksi y chahi e
We have road runner as our provider here in Orlando Florida. I hadn’t been two dissatisfied with their service however I’m going to try Google’s tools and I’ll get back to you with my findings.
Currnet
The more open, neutral, and transparent the net is, the more successful everyone will be online, the bigger the web will get, and most importantly for Google…the more ad’s they’ll be able to serve.