Broadband QoSE testing is generating interest. A news report on ‘Times of India’ yesterday (April 7) suggested the site www.speedtest.net to determine connection speed. This site, like many such others available on web, lets a user to ping to a selected server to check the throughput. (See above – A Sri Lankan user pings to a server in Hong Kong, one of the few available options)
This is fine as long as only the bigger picture will do, but as found in early stages of our research, it gives no clue about the point of bottleneck. Neither has it measured other metrics than the throughput which can be important depending upon the application.
The difference in AshokaTissa methodology proposed by LIRNEasia and IIT Madras is that it covers not only more metrics than an ordinary speed test, but also create a more detailed picture. We think that would be something more interest to ‘Times of India’ readers.
1 Comment
Sanjana Hattotuwa
Hi Chanuka,
I guess what makes these kinds of sites appealing to many users is their simplicity. Ashoka-Tissa cannot be easily duplicated by many end users who just want to find out “how fast” their connection is, sort of like what we both did during GK III in Malaysia, results of which are logged elsewhere on this site – http://www.lirneasia.net/2007/12/broadband-speeds-not-too-different-in-kl-too/.
What they don’t realise is that, as you point out, it doesn’t really give them any info as to why they experience speeds far less than what was promised by their ISP.
Hope you get more coverage in the Indian press for your important work.
SH