Google to expose net throttling

[W1nTry]

So when TSTT charging yuh for 2Mb blink and giving yuh 1.5Mbps you can tell them kiss yuh....

Google to expose net throttling ISPs
Launches Measurement Lab
By Egan Orion
Friday, 30 January 2009, 07:48

NOT EVIL web search leader Google is set to help Internet Service Providers (ISPs) not be evil too, by offering users tools to expose Bit Torrent throttling and other breaches of network neutrality.

"At Google, we care deeply about sustaining the Internet as an open platform for consumer choice and innovation," Google's chief Internet evangelist, Vint Cerf and principal engineer, Stephen Stuart wrote in a post on the company's blog.

As one might expect from the firm whose business model depends, perhaps more than any other, on the free flow of information over the Internet, and its continuing development, Google is a staunch advocate of net neutrality - the proposition that user service providers and backbone carriers must not be permitted to favour any traffic sources, destinations or protocols over any others.

Implicitly acknowledging that some ISPs, telecoms and online content providers may have other, different agendas, they continued, "No matter your views on net neutrality and ISP network management practices, everyone can agree that Internet users deserve to be well-informed about what they're getting when they sign up for broadband, and good data is the bedrock of sound policy."

Thus, along with the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute, the PlanetLab Consortium, and academic researchers, Google has launched Measurement Lab (M-Lab), "an open platform that researchers can use to deploy Internet measurement tools."

The tools, "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."

Researchers have lacked widely-distributed servers, connectivity and adequate bandwidth to support broadly-available end-user testing, so M-Lab will address those problems. The web search powerhouse said it will be providing a few dozen of its tens of thousands of distributed servers to M-Lab, announcing that, "Over the course of early 2009, Google will provide researchers with 36 servers in 12 locations in the US and Europe."

M-Lab intends to make all of the network data it collects publicly available to researchers. It is intended to be an Internet community-based effort, according to Google, which said, "we welcome the support of other companies, institutions, researchers, and users that want to provide servers, tools, or other resources that can help the platform flourish."

One of the early participants in M-Lab is the Glasnost project at the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems in Germany. µ
Click here to find out more!

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/705/1050705/google-expose-net-throttling-isps

[PikachuManZzZ]

As one might expect from the firm whose business model depends, perhaps more than any other, on the free flow of information over the Internet, and its continuing development, Google is a staunch advocate of net neutrality - the proposition that user service providers and backbone carriers must not be permitted to favour any traffic sources, destinations or protocols over any others.

I'll take issue with that statement. Net Neutrality, as it is classical defined, advocates to equal treatment for all sources and all destinations, but doesn't necessarily require equality for all protocols. If you go by the article's (Inquirer's) definition, it would mean all advocates of Net Neutrality would also be against any form of QoS (a situation which is just not the case).

Information is a good thing though. More tools are always welcome.