ARC of Research pt. 2: Exploring Data Sources Relevant to Our Questions
In this second “analysis recommendations in context” post, we will explore the refined research questions from the first post, resulting from our discussion of how to design specific questions with understanding of available data source(s) and the context of what each contains. We emphasized the importance of selecting a data source that matches the goal of the research question. This is critical for analyses of broadband measurement data, particularly when the research goal is to compare the results to one another, to national broadband standards or specific funding requirements, or to align with advertised terms of ISP service.
Migration to the v2 Data Pipeline
If you typically use the measurement-lab.ndt.unified_uploads or measurement-lab.ndt.unified_downloads views, then nothing will change. We are updating the ndt5, switch, and tcpinfo schemas, removing obsolete views, and renaming some views in preparation for improving ease of use and documentation.
Analysis Recommendations in Context - ARC of Research pt. 1: Asking the Right Questions
A while back, our team published some analysis recommendations for anyone working with our data from the Network Diagnostic Tool (NDT), comparing it to other Internet measurement data sets, and drawing conclusions or inferences about the data. These recommendations are intended to provide guidance about analyzing crowdsourced data, because we know that it’s easy for analyses to end up with what looks like a striking comparison or finding, but that may not actually be supported by the underlying measurements or data. But because recommendations are only that, we’re now beginning a series of posts to unpack those recommendations with some context and examples. First, we’ll recap our previous recommendations post with more context, and finish with an example that we’ll continue working with in subsequent posts.
Accessing Traceroute Data and Format Change RFC Results
Two recent disucssions on Traceroute on our M-Lab Discuss group provided clarity on how to access Traceroute data in BigQuery, as well as solicited feedback from the community on proposed changes to the traceroute output format.
Revisiting National Broadband Datasets and Maps
When thinking about broadband in the United States, the first thing people likely think about is whether their connection is fast enough– are they getting the speeds they need to do business, go to school, etc. The dominance of “speed” in assessing broadband service goes all the way to the top- the FCC defines broadband according to the achievable download and upload speeds to the Internet. But generic speed test measurements only go so far in observing a connection’s performance, and M-Lab and the research community are working to expand the concept of broadband measurement beyond basic speeds.