Your payday loan source has had a love/hate relationship with his home Internet connection. Time is money, and there are times when you’d like to receive the kind of bandwidth your ISP promised you in their brochures. Or at least something close to it. All too frequently, however, your cable or DSL connection chugs along like a 28.8k dial-up motorboat. This simply shouldn’t be.

Google agrees… and they’re on the case

Sharon Gaudin writes in Computerworld that Google is launching Measurement Lab (M-Lab), through which researchers and consumers can access Internet performance measurement tools. In short, M-Lab tools will help you figure out what’s slowing down your Internet connection. You’ll also be able to discern whether P2P is being blocked or throttled by your ISP.

Without a doubt, network providers will not be happy that a content provider like Google may be able to dictate how they conduct their business with consumers to a certain degree. However, if Google helps keep ISPs accountable to the promises they make to reel in customers, then your payday loan source is all for it. If you need extra cash online now, you don’t want to have to wait for extraordinarily long page loads due to your ISP throttling bandwidth.

Consumers gaining an upper hand?

Consumers can use M-Lab tools to pressure ISPs to shape up or ship out. Unlike cell phone contracts, most large ISPs allow you to use their networks contract-free. While bandwidth is realistically limited, service providers will have to compete for your business by improving capacity.

“No matter your views on net neutrality and ISP network management practices, everyone can agree that Internet users deserve to be well-informed about what they’re getting when they sign up for broadband, and good data is the bedrock of sound policy,” writes Google’s Vint Cerf and Stephen Stuart. “Transparency has always been crucial to the success of the Internet, and, by advancing network research in this area, M-Lab aims to help sustain a healthy, innovative Internet.”

Whether you want to download software, watch movies or apply for a payday loan, the Internet service you pay hard-earned dollars for should be dependable. Maybe we can all rest easier now, knowing that Google is leading the way toward holding ISPs accountable for their advertising claims of “lightning-fast Internet.”

Related articles

• Google Introduces A New Weapon In The Fight For Net Neutrality: Measurement Labs (techcrunch.com)
• Google and universities offer tool to detect Net filtering, blocking (news.cnet.com)
• Google, others launch M-Lab to track network openness (arstechnica.com)