When Andrew M. Odlyzko investigated why the Internet connection from his home in Minneapolis to his office just over two miles away was so sluggish, he found the answer: the data was taking a round trip to Denver.
Professor Odlyzko, a mathematician, studies the speed and quality of Internet service at the University of Minnesota. His team of researchers issues reports about the growth of Internet traffic, and he uses the team’s tools to watch his own connections, too.
Tracking the speed of Internet service is becoming more and more important as everyone asks the Internet to do more than handle e-mail messages and Web pages. A few lines of text can take its time arriving, but applications sending voice calls or streaming video become unusable if there is too much delay in delivery.
Unfortunately, gathering information about speeds from distant Web sites is not always helpful in diagnosing or fixing problems. The service providers have direct control over only the last link to the home, and they often cannot do much about congestion on a trans-Atlantic cable or about a sluggish server. Any difference in the results of a local test offered by the I.S.P. and an independent test could indicate whether the service provider or Internet at large is responsible for the delay.
Still, service providers have some control over how data is routed through the Internet at large, a complicated technical process called peering.
Professor Odlyzko said he was overjoyed to find out that his local service providers had set up connections with the University of Minnesota’s campus network to speed the movement of data.
“I had nothing to do with it,??? he said. But he is happy that his data is no longer going to Denver.
