Papers, Presentations and Other Documents
Papers, presentations, and other documents that describe the M-Lab platform, tests, and data, as well as research results obtained from the analysis of M-Lab data, are shown below.
Papers
2016
Traffic Microbursts and their Effect on Internet Measurement
Report on M-Lab’s evaluation of reported site performance degradation in late 2015 due to switch discards caused by microburst traffic.
2014
ISP Interconnection and Its Impact on Consumer Internet Performance—A Measurement Lab Consortium Technical Report
Research on the impact of ISP interconnections
Challenges and Issues on Collecting and Analyzing Large Volumes of Network Data Measurements
New Trends in Databases and Information Systems 2014
2013
Visualizing Internet-Measurements Data for Research Purposes: The NeuViz Data Visualization Tool
Overview of NeuViz, a network measurement visualization tool tailored to work with data from the NeuBot measurement test
Dimming the Internet: Detecting Throttling as a Mechanism of Censorship in Iran
Use of M-Lab’s NDT data to analyze Iranian Internet throttling and censorship
Strengthening Measurements from the Edges: Application-level Packet Loss Rate Estimation
ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review 2013
Measuring Broadband America Report—February 2013
The FCC’s February 2013 survey of Internet performance in the United States, with measurement performed against the M-Lab infrastructure
2012
Broadband Access to the Internet via Mobile Interfaces
Examination of mobile network performance indicators in the context of a European regulatory framework—IEEE WMCNT 2012
Network Neutrality and Consumer Discrimination: Comparing ISP’s GTCs and DPI Application
Examination of data from M-Lab’s Glasnost tool and other sources to explore its role in the network neutrality debate—EconStor 2012
Measuring Internet Performance When Broadband Is the New PSTN
Review of M-Lab and other sources of performance measurement data in an era when “broadband is the new PSTN”—MIT technical report 2012
Estimating Packet Loss Rate in the Access through Application-level Measurements
A proposed model for estimating packet loss rate by a given connection, using data from the Neubot measurement test
LIFEGUARD: Practical Repair of Persistent Route Failures
Examination of long-term network outages using data from measurement tests, and proposal of a system for detection, localization, and remediation
Unraveling the Economic and Political Drivers of Deep Packet Inspection
Identification and examination of deep packet inspection (DPI) used to throttle and block BitTorrent traffic, using data from M-Lab’s Glasnost test.
2011
Broadband Internet Performance: A View from the Gateway
Presentation of the first study of network access link performance measured by BISmark by the architects of the BISmark router-based measurement test
Deep Packet Inspection and Bandwidth Management: Battles over BitTorrent in Canada and the United States
Examination of DPI use by Internet service providers to enable throttling or blocking of BitTorrent uploads or downloads—TPRC 2011
ShaperProbe: End-to-end Detection of ISP Traffic Shaping Using Active Methods
Methodology for detecting various types of traffic shaping—IMC 2011
2010
Measurement Lab: Overview and an Invitation to the Research Community
Discussion of the scope of the effort by M-Lab founders, and an invitation to the research community to join them in expanding global measurement
Understanding Broadband Speed Measurements
Review of different speed measurement tests, including M-Lab’s NDT test, and examination of the benefits of different approaches
Reverse Traceroute
Discussion of the model for providing reverse trace information by the architects of the Reverse Traceroute test—NSDI 2010
Glasnost: Enabling End Users to Detect Traffic Differentiation
Description of the rationale behind the Glasnost test and the way it can help expose opaque ISP network management by its architects—NSDI 2010
2008
Pathdiag: Automated TCP Diagnosis
Review of the pathdiag test, used to diagnose network performance problems commonly affecting TCP-based applications
Detecting BitTorrent Blocking
Review of the model used by architects of the Glasnost test to design a test to detect ISP throttling and blocking of the BitTorrent protocol
Presentations
2012
M-Lab at IMC
Presented at IMC, November 2012
M-Lab—Network Science at Scale
Presented at MIT, November 2012
M-Lab—Open Internet Performance Data and How to Get it
Presented at the OECD—WPIIS, December 14, 2012
Other documents
M-Lab Two-Pager
A brief overview of M-Lab
M-Lab Server Specifications for Contributors
A detailed technical review of the specifications and requirements for M-Lab server hosts
How to Get Involved with M-Lab
An overview of ways to join and support the M-Lab consortium
Requirements and Procedure for Approval of New M-Lab tests
A description of the requirements and process for approval of a new measurement test on the M-Lab platform
M-Lab Roles and Responsibilities
An outline of the roles and responsibilities for researchers using the M-Lab platform
M-Lab’s Founding Vision
The founding vision and operational procedures of the M-Lab measurement consortium, as laid out in 2009