News for and about the Internet2 community

[Lauren Rotman <>]

Internet2 Applauds FCC’s Consumer Broadband Test

Test Utilizes Open Source NDT Technology Developed by the Internet2  
Community

Washington, D.C. – March 11, 2010 - Internet2 applauds the Federal  
Communications Commission's launch of a "beta" consumer broadband test  
on broadband.gov which provides consumers an easy way to test the  
performance of their home Internet connection.

Gary Bachula, Internet2 Vice President of External Relations, said,  
"We are pleased that the FCC is providing consumers an easy way to  
measure the quality of their broadband connections. Through this  
effort, the FCC is actively contributing to a public pool of broadband  
performance data that will help guarantee consumers receive the level  
of service they are expecting from Internet service providers. Even  
more important to our future, this test is an essential first step in  
assuring more open, more transparent broadband networks - which are  
critical to supporting the next wave of transformational Internet  
applications."

The FCC test utilizes the Network Diagnostic Tool (NDT), an Internet2- 
community developed technology that measures a user’s download and  
upload speeds, latency and jitter as well as detects other network  
host problems —all of which are critical factors that contribute to  
the Internet’s ability to support applications like Voice over IP,  
videoconferencing, and streaming media. NDT is made available to the  
FCC through Measurement Lab (M-Lab), a project created in 2009 that  
provides a platform for network researchers to deploy and use open  
source tools for actively measuring and understanding Internet  
performance statistics.

M-Lab was launched by researchers from the Georgia Institute of  
Technology, Internet2, the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems,  
Northwestern University, and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center,  
with the support of the New America Foundation's Open Technology  
Institute, the PlanetLab Consortium, and Google Inc. You can learn  
more about Measurement Lab at: http://www.measurementlab.net

ABOUT INTERNET2
Internet2 is an advanced networking consortium led by the research and  
education community. An exceptional partnership spanning U.S. and  
international institutions who are leaders in the worlds of research,  
academia, industry and government, Internet2 is developing  
breakthrough cyberinfrastructure technologies that support the most  
exacting applications of today—and spark the most essential  
innovations of tomorrow.  seehttp://www.internet2.edu.

Media Contact:
Lauren Rotman

202.331.5345