A GRASS ROOTS EFFORT TO HELP OREGON COMMUNITIES

Fast, reliable, affordable Internet access is critical for education, telehealth, skills development, employment opportunities, accessing public information and services, social engagement, and entertainment.

Faster Internet Oregon is a grassroots initiative to gather and map actual home Internet speeds across Oregon in order to identify communities where fast Internet access (“broadband”) is inadequate, unavailable, or unaffordable. Our state stands to receive as much as $700 million in federal funding for broadband infrastructure improvements. Funding decision makers and community leaders will use the Faster Internet Oregon data to ensure that the once-in-a-generation funding will be allocated effectively and equitably.

The effort is led by non-profit and public organizations including Link Oregon, SpeedUpAmerica, Onward Eugene, Oregon’s economic development districts (EDDs) and education service districts (ESDs) and is endorsed by KGW-TV, Oregon State University Extension, the Oregon Public Utility Commission, and a growing ecosystem of supporters.

A SIMPLE SPEED TEST TO MAP GAPS & SECURE FUNDING

Faster Internet Oregon offers a simple, one-minute Home Internet Speed Test and Availability Survey that asks for the location where the test is being conducted. This information is used to create a detailed map that shows gaps where reliable, affordable Internet connectivity is lacking. (A public version of the map is available here; locations are intentionally off-set to protect privacy).

The more data we gather, the more accurate and dynamic the map will be. This information is critical for targeted grant writing and identifying other funding resources as well as designing cost-effective community broadband solutions. Our speed test results may even reveal service opportunities to regional ISPs that they may not be aware of.

YOUR PRIVACY IS A TOP PRIORITY

Our test and survey (offered in both English and Spanish) asks respondents for their home address to ensure accurate mapping. The project partners who will use these maps have signed a data-use agreement that holds the data in confidence and permits its use ONLY for mapping. YOUR DATA WILL NOT BE SOLD OR USED FOR MARKETING PURPOSES.

YOUR HELP IS VITAL

The project goal is to reach 10 percent of Oregon households. To reach that goal, we need your help. Please promote this effort, and our website, FasterInternetOregon.org, to your Oregon friends, family, neighbors, and colleagues and encourage them to take the one-minute Home Internet Speed Test and Availability Survey.

Let’s work together to maximize the benefits of this significant opportunity and close the digital divide in Oregon!

TYPES OF INTERNET SPEED TESTING

There are several types of Internet speed tests and each is used for a different purpose:

• ISP Network Tests: Speed tests performed on an Internet Service Provider (ISP) network will always deliver the fastest possible performance measurement because that speed test originates inside the ISP’s network. This is not, however, representative of the performance when you are browsing outside of the ISP’s network.
• Non-ISP Network Tests: There are two dominant “off-network” speed tests that test for different phenomena:
  • Ookla
  • MLab (Used for the FasterInternetOregon.org Speed Test)

Ookla measures maximum possible circuit performance. This off-ISP network test is generally intended to supplement the ISP’s on-network tests by using multiple channels to get the highest possible circuit performance. As such, if any one channel performs poorly due to retransmission errors or jitter, another channel can take up the slack. Ookla has approximately 8,000 servers globally to allow it to operate as closely as possible to the testing location.

[Note that for certain services such as video streaming (Netflix, for example), the video service organization generally provides network servers to Internet providers so the video streaming will remain within the network and overcome any interruptions or delays caused by hopping off-network, thus allowing video streaming to work in many low performance scenarios.]

Ookla should be used to get an independent measurement (not the ISP’s) of what the circuit is capable of. The purpose is to ascertain if the contracted performance is close to what the ISP says it should be.

MLab, by contrast, measures a typical browsing experience. A browser may open multiple channels, but the web content—such as a student’s remote learning content, for instance—will generally be provided on a single channel. This type of test is best for determining how long it takes to open a web page to view its content irrespective of what is happening on other channels that may be running videos, advertising, or other content.

This type of testing answers questions such as: Is the throughput adequate to support remote learning, telehealth, and so on. The result is less about what a particular PC reports than what a particular region reports. The Faster Internet Oregon objective is not to measure the performance of a specific PC. This is particularly relevant as federal and state infrastructure funding grants are focused on serving communities and regions rather than on individual households.