'M-Lab' Plans To Fill Internet Data Void
A new tool for high-tech researchers to deploy Internet measurement tools and provide the public with information about their broadband connections launched Wednesday on the heels of congressional interest over the extent to which high-speed Internet providers can prioritize traffic on their networks. The announcement came as Cox Communications unveiled a pilot project to prioritize certain Web content that it believes to be time-sensitive. Cable giant Comcast was reprimanded by the FCC last year for the way it managed Internet traffic and that battle is still playing out in court. Meanwhile, calls for "network neutrality" have led to ample legislation and lobbying.
Over the next year, Google will provide researchers brought together by the New America Foundation with 36 servers in 12 locations in the U.S. and Europe. All data collected by the Measurement Lab (M-Lab) will be made publicly available for other researchers to build on, officials said at an afternoon briefing sponsored by the foundation's Open Technology Institute and the PlanetLab Consortium. At the moment, M-Lab has "three servers at an undisclosed location in Mountain View," said Sascha Meinrath, research director of New America's Wireless Future Program. In addition to Google, organizers want to bring in more industry players who share the goal of making the Internet more transparent, he said.
Google Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf, who also spoke at the event, said Internet researchers have had trouble figuring out how the network truly works since the termination of a program at the National Science Foundation in 1995. Under that regime, all data about network performance was made available to researchers but since that time, much of the information has been labeled proprietary and closely guarded by pipeline providers, he said. Cerf, who is widely cited as the "Father of the Internet," said the M-Lab components are "geeky in the extreme" and will usher in a new era in collecting and analyzing Internet data. "We're still a long way from having all the tools needed," he added. Read more from Cerf here and read more about the M-Lab here.
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