Measurement Lab: How Do We Know If the Internet Is Open?

An open Internet is the foundation of access and innovation, where users can go where they want, when they want without discrimination. But how do we know if the Internet is truly open? As individuals, our Internet performance experience is mediated by our physical location, infrastructure, government, and Internet service providers. Yet we are largely blind to how our Internet is impacted by these systems. Without that knowledge, innovation stalls, disparity of access grows, and people become isolated from this critical piece of global infrastructure.

Measurement Lab (M-Lab), a fiscally sponsored project of Code for Science & Society, is a consortium of research, industry, and public interest partners focused on fostering, collecting, and publishing open Internet performance data. M-Lab was founded in 2008 to build a global platform designed to enable anyone to measure their Internet service using open source tools. Over ten years later, M-Lab collects over 2 million measurements per day worldwide and has become a trusted source of open data and tools to gather and understand Internet infrastructure from the consumer perspective. Cities and municipal governments; national regulators and government agencies; academics and researchers; ISPs, network operators, and companies; civil society and advocacy organizations; and the Continue reading