What is Measurement Lab?
M-Lab provides the largest collection of open Internet performance data on the planet.
When an Internet application doesn’t work as expected, how can you tell whether the problem is caused by your connection, the application or something else? It can be very difficult for professional network administrators, let alone average Internet users, to answer this sort of question today. Transparency has always been an essential component of the Internet’s success, and Internet users deserve to be well-informed about the performance of their broadband connections. For that to happen, researchers need resources to develop new analytical tools.
That’s where M-Lab comes in.
M-Lab is an open, distributed server platform on which researchers can deploy open source Internet measurement tools. The data collected by those tools is released in the public domain. The goal of M-Lab is to advance network research and empower the public with useful information about their broadband and mobile connections. By enhancing Internet transparency, M-Lab helps sustain a healthy, innovative Internet.
Tools for Internet Users
Many researchers are already developing tools that allow users to test their network connections by briefly communicating with a server elsewhere on the Internet. The M-Lab platform supports the development of these measurement tools.
An open platform for researchers
M-Lab assists scientific research by providing widely-distributed servers and ample connectivity for researchers’ use. Each tool is allocated dedicated resources on the M-Lab platform to facilitate accurate measurements. Server-side tools are openly licensed and operated, allowing third-parties to develop their own client-side measurement software.
Better, open data for everyone
All data collected via M-Lab is made available to the public, allowing researchers and anyone else to build on a common pool of network measurement data.
Who is M-Lab?
M-Lab is a consortium of research, industry, and public interest partners dedicated to providing an ecosystem for the open, verifiable measurement of global network performance. As a collaborative effort, M-Lab depends on the support and involvement of likeminded people and organizations. If you’d like to be a part of the largest open measurement effort on the planet, don’t hesitate to get involved.