Deepankar Medhi
$599,035
University of California-San Diego
California
Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE)
During the COVID-19 pandemic, accelerated adoption and use of online applications, such as video streaming and conferencing, amplified concerns regarding how residential and mobile broadband performance affects the user's quality of experience. Identifying underserved communities and improving their broadband performance is a crucial step to bridge the digital divide in the United States. However, the existing speed test ecosystem, which plays a vital role in measuring broadband performance, lacks standard approaches in terms of deployment, implementation, configuration, and measurement metrics. These inconsistencies can result in unreliable test results. This project aims to design, implement and deploy a measurement toolkit for Reproducible Assessment of BroadBand Internet Topology and Speed (RABBITS). This toolkit offers comprehensive and longitudinal datasets to facilitate scientific studies on topology and performance of evolving speed test infrastructure. The software included in RABBITS enables reproducible speed tests by supporting the use of consistent test parameters, even across different test platforms. The project seeks to provide rigorous Internet measurement capabilities that can support broadband consumer protection efforts, and identify opportunities to improve coverage in unserved/under-served communities. Additional information about this project can be found at https://rabbits.caida.org. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.