Remember this and this? The Federal Communications Comission busted Comcast last year for limiting peer-to-peer network traffic, but they're allegedly still doing it. Cox Communications said yesterday that they will delay P2P and software downloads. That's why it's nice that Google and two nonprofit partners have teamed to let us plebs test our providers.

Google Inc. and two nonprofit partners Wednesday launched a Web site that lets consumers test their Internet connections to reveal possible interference and traffic management by service providers.

The site, Measurement Lab, addresses a need among academics who want to gather data on how Internet connections work in practice. While the workings of the core Internet "highways" are well known and standardized, it's difficult to find out what happens on the network of an Internet service provider, between the "highway" and the customer's home.

Internet service providers say they increasingly find it necessary to act as traffic cops on this stretch of the Internet to make sure that heavy users don't slow down their neighbors' connections. But the traffic management systems can have unintended consequences, and ISPs have been secretive about their workings for fear that subscribers will circumvent them. The Federal Communications Commission sanctioned Comcast Corp. last year for secretly stifling one particular form of traffic without telling subscribers.

Here is the site. I tried to go there, but their servers seem to be overloaded or something. Apparently no one trusts their ISP. Weird.

Via Forbes.com