Background
The measurement of Internet speed becomes an important matter, when ICT players (e.g. operators, regulators, customers) try to assess whether it is compliant with the speed value indicated in relevant customer's Service Level Agreement (SLA).
The Internet's access speed is normally advertised by fixed and mobile operators, however in most cases customers do not have a global standardized mechanism to verify it.
Currently, the Internet provides various ways to assess the Internet speed. However most of them measure the speed between customers and servers which are located outside of the operator's network, therefore this measure can’t be compared with the value written in the customer’s SLA.
Actually, customers are mostly interested in the assessment of the access speed to a particular Internet service (e.g. movie on YouTube, TV on Google TV, web surfing, etc.), as this would allow them to compare the offers from various operators.
Taking all this into account, the development of a unified approach to measure the Internet speed would be advantageous.The establishment of such a framework would inspire greater consumer confidence in advertised speeds and ensure that accurate comparisons can be made between offerings from different operators.
This webpage provides all interested parties with ITU-T's relevant activities on Internet related performance measurements.
