Internet Performance Profiling of Countries

The paper presents research into data capture and analysis techniques for creating spatial and temporal Internet quality of service (QoS) performance profiles of countries. Active Internet probing and traffic monitoring techniques are used, facilitated through the European RIPE Atlas project to capture raw QoS measurements. The research goal is to contribute toward developing large-scale network QoS performance profiling and testing methods for local to long-range and global-range Internet QoS performance analysis. The range of stakeholder interest in such profiles is wide, from network owners and Internet service providers (ISPs) to Internet service provisioning consultants, and corporate, business, and individual users. Also, applications are wide such as detection and location of temporal traffic bottleneck and faults, bottleneck incidence behavior as a function of geographic and temporal service demands, to Internet service level agreements (SLAs) and their policing. Twenty-six European countries are examined and profiled on the basis of a bidirectional north–south and east–west ‘compass profiling’ methodology over a one-month period. The worst-case scenarios detected are presented as an example. The results may serve as an initial benchmark for mapping evolving performance profiles over longer or continuous periods of time, employing more geographical spread testing probes, and a mix of profiling methodologies especially for verification purposes. A similar approach may be taken to regional, international, and intercontinental Internet QoS profiling.