Use these tools running on M-Lab to test your internet connection and perform diagnostics.
About the tools:
- By using these tools, you help advance research by contributing valuable data about broadband performance.
- The tools only collect data related to the specifically orchestrated communication "flows" between your machine and the M-Lab server.
- The tools do not collect information about your other Internet traffic, such as your emails, Web searches, etc., or any personally identifiable information, unless you affirmatively provide it in response to a specific request, such as a form that asks you to provide your email address, etc..
- All data collected by the tools will be made publicly available.
- All tools are created by individual researchers, not M-Lab itself.
Network diagnostic tool
Test your connection speed and receive sophisticated diagnosis of problems limiting speed.
Glasnost test
Test whether certain applications or traffic are being blocked or throttled on your broadband connection.
Network path & application diagnostics
Diagnose common problems that impact last-mile broadband networks.
Bandwidth test
See how much bandwidth your connection provides
Traffic shaping test
Determine whether an ISP is performing traffic shaping.
Bismark Gateway
Apply to host a router device to test Internet connectivity over time.
Mobile traffic test
Detect whether your mobile broadband provider is performing application or service specific differentiation.
Network Diagnostic Tool
Network Diagnostic Tool (NDT) provides a sophisticated speed and diagnostic test. An NDT test reports more than just the upload and download speeds -- it also attempts to determine what, if any, problems limited these speeds, differentiating between computer configuration and network infrastructure problems. While the diagnostic messages are most useful for expert users, they can also help novice users by allowing them to provide detailed trouble reports to their network administrator.
Data collection
The server collects test results, records the user's IP address, upload/download speed, packet headers and TCP variables of the test. Archived results are publicly available on Amazon's EC2, and details on the structure of the data can be found here.
More information
Glasnost test
Glasnost attempts to detect whether your Internet access provider is performing application-specific traffic shaping. Currently, you can test if your ISP is throttling or blocking email, HTTP or SSH transfer, Flash video, and P2P apps including BitTorrent, eMule and Gnutella .
Data collection
The measurement server records the user's IP address, and all data packets received by the server from your computer or sent by the server to your computer. In addition, it monitors errors in the communication with the server and the throughput of the transfers for those communication "flows," and sends them to the server.
More information
Network path & application diagnostics
NPAD diagnoses some of the common problems effecting the last network mile and end-users' systems. These are the most common causes of all performance problems on wide area network paths.
Data collection
As NPAD transfers bulk data between the server and your computer it gathers detailed statistics about what mechanisms actually regulate performance. In doing so, the server collects test results and records the IP addresses, upload/download speed, packet headers and TCP variables of the test.
Archived results are publicly available on Amazon's EC2, and details on the structure of the data can be found here.
More information
Pathload2 bandwidth test
Pathload2 measures the "available bandwidth" of your Internet connection. The available bandwidth is the maximum bit rate you can send to a network link before it gets congested.
We are currently working on a Windows 7 compatible version of Pathload2.
Data collection
For every measurement, Pathload2 collects a user's IP address, the time of measurement, the measured available bandwidth in the downstream and upstream directions, and other related statistics.
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ShaperProbe traffic shaping test
ShaperProbe detects whether your ISP performs "traffic shaping". Traffic shaping means that your ISP automatically drops your access rate after you have downloaded or uploaded a certain number of bytes. ShaperProbe detects whether traffic shaping is used in either the upload or download directions, and in that case that it is used, ShaperProbe reports the shaping rate and the "maximum burst size" before shaping begins.
We are currently working on a Windows 7 compatible version of ShaperProbe.
Data collection
ShaperProbe records the user's IP address, per-packet timestamps and delay/loss measurements as packets traverse the path from the client to the M-Lab server and back.
More information
WindRider mobile traffic test
WindRider attempts to detect whether your mobile broadband provider is performing application or service specific differentiation, i.e. prioritizing or slowing traffic to certain websites, applications, or content.
Data collection
The measurement server records the mobile device's IP address, and measures the delays of traffic sent to and from the mobile device. It also records delays experienced by different webpages.
The mobile application initiates a series of downstream and upstream transfers with the Measurement Lab Server and records statistics regarding the observed performance. The different transfers are initiated on different ports in order to see if the provider is differentiating traffic based on application, for example web transfers experience faster speeds than applications on other ports. These active measurement results are stored on the considered Measurement Lab Server.
In addition, over time the application measures the delays experienced by different web pages and records the explicit user feedback about different applications. The statistics are uploaded to our servers and not on the Measurement Lab infrastructure. The user can opt out if they desire. In this part, we collect statistics regarding the delays experienced by same pages on different providers and locations and we will determine if certain web pages experience higher delays on certain providers or do not load at all.
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Bismark test
Bismark is a project to benchmark broadband performance in homes. Georgia Tech is working with the FCC and SamKnows to deploy programmable gateways nationwide. Bismark is a hardware-based test, but the research team is taking applications for people interested in hosting a test box.
Data collection
The boxes will connect to the servers every 5-10 minutes and run a series of tests (latency, packet loss, jitter). Throughput tests are run every 30 minutes or so (single threaded upstream and downstream file transfer using curl; these are also scheduled on the server side to prevent conflicts). Capacity tests are run once every 6 hours.
More information
NANO user test (coming soon!)
NANO attempts to detect whether an ISP is degrading the performance of a certain subset of users, applications, or destinations.
Data collection
NANO will perform two functions and collect two sets of data:
- NANO will conduct some tests between the client and an M-Lab server, such as generating downloads of different types of application traffic. This data will be sent to the M-Lab server.
- NANO will also monitor the user's network traffic and collect summary statistics about performance when the user visits popular Internet destinations. Rather than generating tests, it monitors the user's activity in the course of his or her normal Internet usage. NANO sends anonymized and aggregated versions of these statistics back to the NANO research team at Georgia Tech. This data will not be sent to the M-Lab server.
A full explanation of NANO's data collection and anonymization will be listed when the tool is made public.
