Using Volunteer Computing for monitoring Broadband QoSE Chanuka Wattegama and Nilusha Kapugama This work was carried out with the aid of a grant from the International Development Research Centre, Canada and the Department for International Development, UK.

Agenda Monitoring Quality of Service Experience (QoSE) : possible approaches Monitoring QoSE: through demand-side testing Volunteer Computing for data gathering Results: from USA and India Conclusion

We measure QoSE: from the demand (user) side, objective and quantifiable QoSE: Quality of Service Experience An objective measure of user’s experience of delivered quality with or without reference to promised levels. Quality of Experience Quality of Service

Possible ways to monitoring quality Self regulation by operators Direct monitoring by regulators User satisfaction surveys Demand-side (user) testing Intrusiveness on network Regulator participation ++/+/-+++ Depends on survey - Operator participation +++ Depends on survey - User participation Subjectivity of results ++/+/ High ++ Medium + low - none

Relevant metrics for testing +++ Highly Relevant ++ very relevant + relevant - not relevant ThroughputDelay ServiceDownUpRTTJitterLoss Browse (text) Browse (media) Download file Upload File Transactions Streaming media VOIP Games

Available Software Applications monitor… MetricSpeedtest. net Speedtest2. com internetfr og Download Upload RTT Jitter Packet Loss Availability AT-Tester Application Developed by IIT-Madras uses 6 Metrics

Methodology contd… Software freely available for download Multiple measures of each metric taken during a day – The time and day is recorded and reported to check for Peak/Off peak variations Location is recorded to measure regional variations The metrics are measured in three domains; ISP, National, International

xxx Internet User ISP (Sri Lanka) Singtel (Singapore) Network Solutions (USA) Yahoo xxx xxx xxx National Server (Sri Lanka) xxx The 3 test domains…

Results on uploaded to

Methodology depends on a hybrid of Volunteer Computing to get sufficient data Volunteer Computing characteristicsAT-Tester Uses storage and processing capacity of volunteers’ computers Software application available for download Computation done by the application, results uploaded to website No effort required from the volunteer – uses computer when idle × Academic or public interest project Trustworthy Software Application Uses computer processing and storage resources of the general public (volunteers) for computationally intensive projects (Anderson, 2009)

Users in USA get more value for money Download from National Domain Download from International Domain

Latency to national level similar but diverges at International level – * Limits specified by the Singapore Regulator IDA for national and International network latency 300 ms* 85 ms*

Does the model Work? Methodology has potential – but adoption levels need to be improved. – Number of volunteers lower than expected – Many register/download software; but few complete Possible ways to increase adoption: – More publicity (More volunteers from Sri Lanka and India where awareness work (workshops, public lectures) was done – Incentives (free software for highest number of readings contributed etc) – Seeing positive results (through operator and policy makers taking actions based on results)

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