[Bloat] Fixing bufferbloat: How about an open letter to the web benchmarkers?

[Rich Brown]

Dave,

I'll sign too. (And I like the 98th percentile measure for each direction to give a single number that represents what's happening. It could include ping loss rate, as well...)

But more importantly, an open letter would likely be more powerful than the results I got from sending a note to the purveyors of speed tests. I've appended the note I sent about six weeks ago. And here's a paraphrase of their responses. (None of them seem to have twigged to the value of measuring bloat.)

speedtest.net - We wanted to follow up and let you know that are developers were informed of your ideas. 

speedof.me - We may add such features in future versions

testmy.net - I think you're really going to like my next version... you'll be provided a much deeper insight. 

There's a flock of other vendors - I just googled "Internet speed test" and got a dozen or so more. Many are served by Ookla/Speedtest.net, but many seem to have independent implementations...

I'll pull together a list of people to send the open letter to (trade press, etc)

Rich

----- Summary of note sent to these speed test vendors in early August 2014 -----
Hi!

I would love to see real-time latency measurements, and a summary of min and max times in the final report. Your page currently displays a single "latency" value, but it appears that it's simply the measurement before you start the data transfers. It's really interesting to see that low value, but also the range/max of the latency. 

Why is latency interesting? I'm a member of the CeroWrt project that is working to reduce latency in home routers (and everywhere else). Our research has led to the development and testing of the fq_codel algorithm that virtually eliminates bufferbloat (high latency during heavy traffic). You can read about the project at: http://www.bufferbloat.net/projects/cerowrt

I'm asking you to consider implementing the web-equivalent of our "Quick Test for Bufferbloat"http://www.bufferbloat.net/projects/cerowrt/wiki/Quick_Test_for_Bufferbloat By showing what happens to latency during transfers, people can become aware of the problem, and that there's a fix for it. (I'm using the CeroWrt firmware at my house. Ping times to Google only go up by ~20-30 msec even when I max out the DSL link in both directions.)


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