[Bloat] Fixing bufferbloat in 2017

[Jan Ceuleers]

On 28/11/16 03:16, Jim Gettys wrote:
> Ookla may have made themselves long term irrelevant by their recent
> behavior.  When your customers start funding development of a
> replacement (as Comcast has), you know they aren't happy.
> 
> So I don't sweat Ookla: helping out the Comcast test effort is probably
> the best way to get bufferbloat in front of everyone, and best yet, the
> code for the tests is out there.

I do hope you're right Jim, but I still worry that Ookla is heavily
entrenched in carriers' test labs. This position has, I believe, come
about not because of Ookla's expertise in network testing but rather
because of market pull (i.e. speedtest.net's huge popularity with
end-users).

As long as both of these positions remain (i.e. Ookla's mind share of
end-users and their resulting market share in the labs of large
purchasers of CPE) their lack of interest in bufferbloat is going to
keep this topic off the agenda in a large part of the industry.

Unless Ookla can be coerced somehow.

I have previously suggested standardising network throughput testing
methods and "grading" criteria. If there's an RFC on this subject
carriers are going to be interested in conformance to it and will
pressure their suppliers (of network testing gear, of CPE etc).