Ookla Net Metrics Application & Methodology
More About Ookla Net Metrics Application (Description provided by Ookla, Inc.)
Ookla is a global leader and recognized by many as setting the standard in web-based network diagnostic applications. Ookla’s testing engines and methodology have been maintained and refined continually over nearly a decade resulting in high quality broadband testing applications. Ookla’s cross-platform solutions have been translated into 23 different languages serving scores of Fortune 500 companies and thousands of small businesses including at least one in every country recognized by the UN. Ookla also provides free services at their public web site Speedtest.net. All of Ookla’s applications feature encrypted data handling complementing their strict privacy policy. Ookla can be reached at www.speedtest.net.
Ookla Net Metrics Methodology:
The download and upload throughput measurements of the Line Quality Test are performed entirely over HTTP (TCP port 80 unless you are using an alternate port on your web server). All other tests are done via direct socket connections in Java on both the client and the server.
Latency/Jitter Test
- These tests are done by measuring the round trip time for TCP packets sent to the server
- The average of 10 samples (configurable) determines the result
- TCP port 5060 is the default (configurable)
- The variance for all of the samples determines jitter
Packet Loss Test
- The client sends 100 UDP packets (configurable) to the server
- UDP port 5060 is the default (configurable)
- The number of packets that don't get received determines the packet loss percentage
Download Test
- Small binary files are downloaded from the web server to the client to estimate the connection speed
- Based on this result, one of several file sizes is selected to use for the real download test
- The test is performed with cache prevention via random strings appended to each download
- Up to 8 parallel HTTP threads (configurable) can be used for the test
- Throughput samples are received at up to 30 times per second
- These samples are then aggregated into 20 slices (each being 5% of the samples)
- The fastest 10% and slowest 30% of the slices are then discarded (see * below for more detail)
- The remaining slices are averaged together to determine the final result
Upload Test
- A small amount of random data is generated in the client and sent to the web server to estimate the connection speed
- Based on this result, an appropriately sized set of randomly generated data is selected for upload
- The upload test is then performed in configurable chunk sizes (pushed to a server-side script via a POST)
- The test can be done using up to 8 parallel HTTP threads (configurable)
- Chunks are sorted by speed, and the fastest half is averaged to eliminate anomalies and determine the result
* Since we are measuring data transported over HTTP via Flash there is potential protocol overhead, buffering due to the many layers between our application and the raw data transfer and throughput bursting due primarily to CPU usage. This accounts largely for dropping the top 10% and bottom 10% of the samples. We also keep our default test length short for the user experience, and compared to this duration the ramp-up period is fairly significant driving us to eliminate another 20% of the bottom result samples.
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