Speed and responsiveness are critical elements when identifying and resolving customer-impacting network performance issues. Unfortunately, it hasn’t always been easy for internet service providers (ISPs) and mobile network operators to connect internal monitoring system flags to individual customer problem reports. Even once that connection is made, most providers lack a simple way to proactively respond to known performance issues via customer care.

Fortunately, real-time insights into network performance can help providers proactively identify degradation, effectively communicate with customers via traditional customer care flows and social media, and strategically deploy engineers to the most deeply affected areas.

In the Ookla® webinar on October 8, we’ll share three real-world use cases where ISPs and mobile operators are using real-time feeds of Speedtest® data to improve their network operations centers (NOC) and customer care responses. Read on for three examples of how the world’s leading network providers are approaching real-time performance issues.

1. Monitor network performance in real-time to proactively identify customer issues

Data collected via Speedtest Intelligence™, Speedtest Custom™ or a Speedtest SDK™ can be ingested via real-time feeds. These feeds can either connect to Amazon Web Services solutions such as Simple Queue Services (SQS) or to a webhook API. This allows for tight integration of real-time network performance information directly into critical provider services, including customer care.

2. Create NOC dashboards to identify regions and specific locations experiencing performance degradation

Often, consumers report performance issues before internal monitoring tools can detect a trend. Speedtest data can be pulled from real-time feeds to identify individual outliers or arbitrary regions (e.g., a postal code, state or territory) for further investigation. This data can be correlated with network probe data in real-time to provide deeper insights into issues impacting regional performance.

3. Integrate Speedtest data into customer care workflows to help troubleshoot connection issues in real-time

Customer speed tests are already an important component of most customer care workflows — whether taken via a network provider’s own system, Speedtest applications or an operator’s Speedtest SDK instance. While simply identifying whether an internet connection performs as provisioned is a critical first step in troubleshooting customer network issues, additional information is often necessary to truly understand the root cause of an issue. Speedtest real-time feeds deliver this information directly to customer care systems, helping teams understand how factors like connection type, technology, signal level and Wi-Fi band frequency impact an end user’s individual experience.

The webinar on Thursday, October 8 at 9 a.m. Pacific (12 p.m. Eastern) will show these solutions in action. Don’t miss it. A recording will be provided for registrants who can’t tune in to the live presentation. Register now.

Tall buildings present a particular challenge when analyzing indoor mobile network performance and coverage, because those metrics can vary significantly by height. New 3D “z-axis” views in Cell Analytics™ from Ookla^® allow mobile network operators to spot problems at specific elevations that a traditional two-dimensional view could miss.

Powered by hundreds of millions of daily performance, coverage and signal measurements from Speedtest^®, Cell Analytics provides unparalleled intelligence about wireless service quality, RF measurements, data usage, indoor and outdoor user density, cell site locations and much more — surfaced in one intuitive platform. With the release of the new 3D views, operators can use this real-world data to pinpoint areas of poor mobile service, down to individual floor groups in buildings.

Network engineering and planning teams can see metrics like LTE RSRP, RSRQ, RSSNR and more, broken out vertically in 15-meter intervals. This article will explore three ways operators can use these powerful new views.

View conditions and user density by height in buildings

Cell Analytics provides data from locations that are not accessible by traditional data collection methods like drive testing and walk testing, such as private businesses and residences. The new 3D views show how any operator’s network performance, coverage and quality vary by floor groups within individual buildings, as well as user density by floor group across all operators. These views help to identify areas of high user concentration within buildings where you are also experiencing poor performance.

In the below example, we looked at the Smart network in Manila. By examining RF conditions in floor groups with high user counts, we can identify floor groups in individual buildings where the Smart network is providing marginal or poor coverage to a large number of users. Conversely, we can see where Smart has a competitive advantage: superior RF conditions and a large pool of potential new subscribers.

Identify which buildings are suffering poor quality on upper floors due to interference

Performance and quality of a network can vary dramatically within tall buildings. A customer may have a variable experience on your network, depending on where they are located in a given building, which can make a critical difference in a populous office high-rise or on the ground floor of a hospital. Detailed in-building analysis can show by height where performance is suffering, down to individual floor groups.

Using the 3D z-axis view in Cell Analytics, you can see where optimization is needed to accommodate for variable performance in important buildings. In the below example, we can see Kwong Wa Hospital in Hong Kong. This large, 1141-bed hospital has high user density and sees good coverage, but poor quality, on the csl network. We can also see that coverage increases with height in this building, while quality decreases. This behavior indicates interference within the building — and highlights an area where csl may want to build a new cell site or focus optimization efforts on the existing network.

Identify buildings where your competitors have installed indoor systems

In addition to discovering areas of competitive strength and weakness, Cell Analytics z-axis views can help you discover where other operators have installed indoor systems, such as small cells or distributed antenna systems (DAS). By analyzing network performance and coverage data by floor group, you can determine the location of indoor cell sites, with high confidence.

If a tall building has excellent coverage and quality all the way through the uppermost floors, it is a likely indicator that the building contains indoor systems. Further confirmation can be provided by comparing the cell IDs serving users within and outside the building.

The 3D views in Cell Analytics can be panned, tilted and rotated to get a full view of in-building performance and coverage. Never before has it been so easy to explore network metrics in the locations that are most important to your customers — at all elevations.

Ready to get unparalleled insights into your own and competitor networks? Request a demo of Cell Analytics today.

Ookla® has acquired SpatialBuzz, an innovative provider of enterprise telecommunications solutions that empower operators with early detection capabilities for network issues combined with real-time opportunities to directly engage with customers and ensure their satisfaction.

SpatialBuzz and Ookla share the same core goal of improving the internet experience for all people. Together, we will explore new ways to help increase consumer transparency, improve the performance and quality of networks and ensure that our enterprise clients benefit even more from Ookla solutions.

Ookla will continue to support the full portfolio of SpatialBuzz solutions. We are thrilled to welcome the SpatialBuzz team to Ookla and look forward to a shared mission moving forward.

Our mission at Ookla® is to make the internet better, faster and more accessible for everyone. To that end, we continuously look for ways to help internet service providers and mobile network operators diagnose customer issues and make network improvements. Today, we’re excited to announce a new way for network providers to integrate Speedtest® directly into your websites and web-based customer care solutions. The Speedtest Web SDK™ helps you understand how network performance and quality of service impact the consumer experience, so you can provide better, more informed customer care.

The Speedtest brand is already trusted by hundreds of millions of consumers worldwide as a source for accurate, unbiased network testing. With the Speedtest Web SDK, network operators can now integrate this same robust, accurate testing experience into their web solutions, with complete control over the user interface.

Built on Speedtest’s industry-standard testing engine and methodology

Built in Javascript, this software development kit allows you to install Speedtest as the testing solution on your website. You can build the user interface to your exact specifications and configure individual test stages including download, upload and ping.

With the ability to test against your own servers, you can diagnose and troubleshoot individual customer problems, down to the last mile of a network connection. Optionally, the Speedtest Server Network™ can be accessed for testing your customers’ network performance.

Complete network diagnostics, with flexible data and reporting options

The Speedtest Web SDK provides results for download speed, upload speed and latency (ping and jitter). Data is available directly inside your application at the time of the test, ready to drive dynamic content and actionable insights to customers. The data can be delivered to your data warehouse either as a CSV extract or via a real-time JSON feed, which may be integrated into a customer experience management or CRM platform for customer care use.

The Ookla team offers support throughout the SDK implementation process, providing onboarding and assistance with test server implementation. Licensing the Speedtest SDK includes ongoing maintenance updates and technical support in addition to technical documentation, test methodology documentation and FAQs.

How providers use the Speedtest Web SDK

With the Speedtest SDK, you can collect rich data that can be used to help:

• Predict and prevent customer churn
• Plan and validate network improvements
• Diagnose and troubleshoot individual customer problems
• Prevent expensive service truck rolls
• Ensure regulatory compliance

Whether improving an individual consumer’s call with customer care or analyzing trends in network performance, you can use Speedtest data to resolve issues impacting customer experience and save money on field support costs.

The Speedtest Web SDK makes it easy for network providers to offer a world-class network testing experience in your own solutions, backed by the Speedtest brand that consumers know and trust. Interested in other ways to provide Speedtest to your customers? We will be launching the Speedtest Mobile SDK™ later in 2020 so clients can integrate Speedtest into their mobile applications.

To learn more, inquire about the SDK today.

Online privacy is key to today’s web users who want to browse where and how they please with the security of knowing that no one is snooping on their online activity. A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is a crucial part of every consumer’s internet toolbox. And now Ookla® is offering Speedtest VPN^TM, a mobile VPN service through the Speedtest® app you already know and trust.

What a VPN is and why you need one

A VPN protects your internet browsing and app usage, keeping it private even if you’re using an otherwise unsecured connection. A VPN anonymizes your IP address and encrypts your internet activity on one end and then decrypts it at the other. This means that no one can see what you’re doing online — not hackers at your local coffee shop, not your neighbor who’s borrowing your Wi-Fi, not even your internet service provider (ISP).

Your online activity is vulnerable if you use public Wi-Fi or other unsecured connections. VPNs create a private session to keep what you’re doing online secure. Speedtest VPN routes your internet connection through a trusted server that secures your identity online.

Why Speedtest VPN?

People have been turning to Speedtest for over 13 years for the most accurate and reliable measures of internet speeds. Now with Speedtest VPN, we can help you ensure your online privacy and security from the convenience of your Speedtest® mobile application. Here are five reasons you should try Speedtest VPN:

• It’s convenient. With no additional app to download or account to create, you can easily try out Speedtest VPN on your mobile device using your existing Google Play or App Store account.
• It’s everywhere. You can use Speedtest VPN on any mobile network you’re connected to, in any location or context where you use your Android or iOS mobile device.
• It’s familiar. Not only is Speedtest VPN available within an app that you’re probably already using, it’s also available in all 17 languages that Speedtest supports.
• It’s trustworthy. We do not collect, store or sell information related to your online activities.
• It’s free. Your first 2 GB of data over VPN is free every month.

Get started securing your connection today. Download Speedtest on the App Store or get it on Google Play and go to the VPN tab in the app.

Learn more about Speedtest VPN.

How to get and install Speedtest VPN

Speedtest VPN is already in your Speedtest app on your mobile device. Just open Speedtest and then click on the VPN tab at the bottom of your screen to get started. The app will guide you through a quick series of prompts to turn on Speedtest VPN.

Protect all your browsing with Speedtest VPN Premium

For unlimited data protection, upgrade to Speedtest VPN Premium for $4.99 USD per month. Premium subscribers also receive an ad-free Speedtest experience during their subscription. Unlike other VPN services, Speedtest VPN Premium offers flexible monthly billing through the App Store or Google Play with no expensive annual commitments.

Download Speedtest for Android or iOS to try Speedtest VPN.

Every day, over 10 million consumers press the “Go” button on Speedtest® to measure the performance and quality of their internet connection. Powering every one of these tests is a global network of high-performance servers, ready to test the maximum sustained throughput of the user’s connection (download and upload speeds) and to report back on key network health metrics, such as latency, jitter, packet loss and traceroute (the transit delays and path of packets across a network). These are the critical metrics that provide consumers with an accurate, reliable measure of their internet speed and the quality of their connectivity.

Today, the Speedtest Server Network™ includes more than 10,000 servers worldwide, representing over 7,000 unique host networks. This article explores how this distributed server network — along with the Ookla® Speedtest methodology — ensures the most accurate testing for consumers while delivering valuable insights on performance and quality back to network providers in order to build a faster internet for everyone.

The Speedtest Server Network

The accuracy and consistency of Speedtest is made possible through the global network of servers that host our server daemon, OoklaServer. This robust network and the proprietary protocol that we have implemented ensures that our users can fully evaluate the quality of service of their connection — wherever they are on the planet, and on all types of networks. Over the last 14 years, the Speedtest Server Network has grown to span over 190 countries and most major population centers around the globe.

The server hardware and connectivity are supplied by network providers who want insight into the performance and quality of their networks — including fixed broadband ISPs, mobile network operators, application and content service providers, hosting and colocation providers, and academic and other industry groups. To complement this extensive network of hosted servers, additional high capacity dedicated server infrastructure is provided at the hardware layer to Ookla by sponsor organizations such as OneProvider, a global provider of dedicated hosting, cloud hosting, and colocation services around the world.

With over 7,000 global host networks incorporating testing servers, Ookla ensures the objectivity of Speedtest measurements through OoklaServer, the core server software that communicates with our Speedtest client software. Read on to learn more about our methodology for accurately measuring a consumer’s quality of service down to the last mile, how OoklaServer works and how we dynamically monitor this distributed server network.

The foundation of a Speedtest server

As high-throughput fiber connectivity and 5G wireless technology bring gigabit speeds to end users around the globe, it’s critical that network testing solutions can keep up. In the past, individual consumers were unable to purchase internet connections speeds of 1 Gbps. Today, it is common to see users with 1 Gbps and even 10 Gbps connections to the home. Meanwhile, 5G mobile technology is bringing high-throughput connectivity to the pockets and dashboards of consumers in many markets. At Ookla, we’ve been working hard to stay ahead of the bandwidth curve by ensuring that Speedtest is capable of testing 10 Gbps and beyond.

To test speeds on the client-side, Speedtest fully saturates an internet connection by connecting to the Speedtest Server Network to measure the maximum throughput capacity of the connection. To ensure complete saturation, we have stringent criteria to ensure that the Speedtest Server Network is comprised of high-performance servers with high quality network transit and peering. In addition to a standard set of performance criteria for all servers, Ookla rigorously evaluates the network performance and uplink capacity of all servers in the Speedtest Server Network. Automated processes continuously monitor server performance to ensure the overall network is operating at peak performance.

In smaller markets where high-speed network infrastructure is not pervasive, Speedtest servers have a minimum requirement of 1 Gbps upstream and downstream network capacity. In developed markets such as major metro areas, servers must have a minimum upstream and downstream capacity of 10 Gbps. Many large network operators provide multiple servers with capacity of 40 Gbps or 100 Gbps.

Ookla’s constant innovation ensures measurement consistency and objectivity across networks

Because we manage the end-to-end testing ecosystem, Ookla maintains consistent testing standards and vendor-neutral objectivity when delivering results to consumers and network operators alike. More than just measuring the time to transfer data, our software delivers a holistic evaluation of network health, focusing on quality of service (QoS) metrics. Furthermore, because OoklaServer is co-located on networks close to the consumer, all over the world, Speedtest minimizes upstream bottlenecks in the testing process that can add latency variation and skew performance metrics.

OoklaServer serves up our own proprietary TCP-based protocol that partners with Speedtest clients across a wide range of consumer platforms. Key features of the Speedtest protocol:

• Dynamic connection scaling that adapts the number of concurrent connections to any connection type.
• Stable stop early test termination to avoid unnecessary bandwidth usage once an accurate measurement has been obtained.
• Server-side upload measurement to measure upload performance and quality from the receiving end of a data transfer. This notably improves accuracy of measurement on connection types suffering from high connection latency, or those impacted by client-side buffering.

Because this software is maintained and regularly updated by Ookla, it’s also fully extendable to support new features and optimizations as the connectivity landscape evolves. For example, we’ll be moving beyond a one-to-one client-to-server relationship later this year by introducing a standard feature to Speedtest that measures data streams from multiple servers simultaneously to ensure accuracy even in the most extreme cases of high-bandwidth testing.

Ookla provides a holistic measure of network health

At Ookla, our mission is to help build a better, faster and more available internet. There is an old saying that you can’t improve what you don’t measure, and we achieve this mission by providing accurate, objective measurements to consumers and network operators. With our globally distributed server network, users on all types of networks can fully evaluate the performance and quality of their connection. With a wide variety of networks represented, users can test both on-net to a server on the network they’re subscribed to or off-net to a server on a network outside of their operator’s network.

When you press the “GO” button on a Speedtest application, we automatically select a nearby server to focus on this aspect of connectivity. Depending on the server responses, users will test to the best possible server, regardless if it is on-net or off-net. These are the results that make up the data that drives our enterprise data, including provider rankings and Speedtest Awards.

Testing to an on-net server is the best representation of the “last mile” of a user’s network connection. The most common use case we see involves an end user evaluating their “last mile” connection — that is, the service provided to them by their ISP or mobile carrier. By testing to an on-net server, Speedtest isolates the last mile connection and rules out any bottlenecks upstream of the ISP.

Testing to an off-net server represents performance of services outside an operator’s network (such as applications like video conferencing, gaming platforms and streaming services). While Speedtest focuses on last mile QoS for consumer connectivity, many users find it important to evaluate end-to-end performance to the services they care about. By comparing multiple Speedtest results both on- and off-network, consumers gain context about the internal health of an ISP’s network along with their external peering and transit performance.

Join the Speedtest Server Network

The robust Speedtest Server Network forms the foundation that allows Speedtest to provide the most accurate and reliable measurement of internet performance, trusted by users around the globe. Providing a host server(s) on the Speedtest network ensures that your services are accurately measured by the millions of consumers who use Speedtest every day. This builds trust with your users and provides valuable data driven insights into the performance your users are seeing.

Learn more about partnering with Ookla to host a server as part of this essential service.