M-Lab Publishes the Internet Quality Barometer Framework!

[Measurement Lab Team]

Measurement Lab is happy to announce the publication of the Internet Quality Barometer Framework! The Internet Quality Barometer (IQB) is an initiative made possible through funding from the Internet Society Foundation and is motivated by the need to redefine how we measure and understand Internet performance to keep pace with evolving technological demands and user expectations.

For decades, policymakers, advocates, Internet researchers, Internet service providers and more have relied on speed test and speed test data to tell us if our Internet connections are performing well. But as the Internet has evolved so have its use cases and “high-speed” alone is no longer a good indicator of “high-quality” Internet.

Plenty of Internet quality data and tools and methodologies exist, but it is unclear how to effectively integrate them with one another.

IQB's primary goal is to fill that gap and build consensus for a more nuanced definition of Internet quality. By moving beyond a narrow focus on speed, IQB seeks to provide stakeholders with actionable insights that support smarter policies and a more equitable Internet.

In this first phase of the project we built and defined the framework, which we’ll continue iterating on and in future phases build an accessible tool for putting the framework to use.

Check out the IQB Framework Report or the Executive Summary for the details!

Thank you to those who contributed to this report and special thanks to the team behind the project: Lai Yi Ohlsen, Melissa Newcomb, Pavlos Sermpezis, Amy Cesal,  Abhishek Sharma, John Horrigan.