{"55195":{"#nid":"55195","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Why Is My Internet Slow?","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EMost people don\u2019t understand how their broadband Internet connection works, they just know when it doesn\u2019t. When that happens, they do one of two things: consult the tech wizard in their house, or call their Internet provider. But what if regular people had information about how their Internet connections were performing at their fingertips? What if they could easily give priority to uploads or downloads on one computer over another, making sure their kids\u2019 YouTube antics don\u2019t interfere with their work? They may soon be able to do just that.\n\n\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMarshini Chetty, a Ph.D. candidate in the College of Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology, details her efforts in testing Microsoft Research\u2019s Home Watcher system and talks a bit about another system she\u0027s designed and is currently testing, called Kermit. The Home Watcher research will be presented at CHI 2010, the Association for Computing Machinery\u2019s Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, being held at the Hyatt Regency Atlanta, April 10-15.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\n\u003Cstrong\u003EQ:\u003C\/strong\u003E What is Home Watcher?\n\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\n\u003Cstrong\u003EMarshini Chetty:\u003C\/strong\u003E Homewatcher is a system, designed by the Computer Mediated Living and Systems \u0026amp; Networking groups at Microsoft Research, Cambridge, that I tested in the UK as part of a summer internship. It runs on Windows machines to allow you to monitor the bandwidth usage of each machine on your home network. We tested it using six households, with a total of 24 people in all. Three of them had teenagers, one was a married couple and two of them had roommates.\n\n\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWith Home Watcher, it\u2019s a central display that allows you to see the uploads and downloads of each machine in your house. So in the display, each of these little blobs represents a computer in your house. And up on the top, these are the uploads and downloads for each machine. So these little blobs bounce up and down on a little graph, showing you how much bandwidth they\u2019re using.\n\n\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESo you can see, this guy (in yellow) is using a lot compared to these other three. It\u2019s downloading a lot more. And then here (in orange) you can see no one\u2019s really doing much downloading. And you can also drag these ellipses up and down to limit someone. So you could say, \u201cOh this person is downloading a lot. Let me take them down so they can\u2019t download as much.\u201d\n\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\n\u003Cstrong\u003EQ:\u003C\/strong\u003E Sounds simple enough.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\n\u003Cstrong\u003EMarshini Chetty:\u003C\/strong\u003E The idea with this system is that it\u2019s meant to be made so anyone can use it, whereas most other networking tools are designed for someone who\u2019s very technically oriented. It\u2019s for one machine that is the central machine that would monitor everyone else. This is more like a household tool, like a thermostat, but just for your network.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\n\u003Cstrong\u003EQ:\u003C\/strong\u003E What were you trying to learn?\n\n\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMarshini Chetty:\u003C\/strong\u003E So the idea was, you have all this information that people can\u2019t access - what happens if you make it visible? How do they react to that? If you actually show them who the bandwidth hogs are in their house, what happens? How does that change how they understand things? Does it help them troubleshoot the network? So that\u2019s how the collaboration with Microsoft Research started.\n\n\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI was hoping to learn if you make things more visible, does that actually change what people can do? Does it give them more power? Does it empower the people who aren\u2019t as technical. And yeah, then people were able to say, through the study, \u201cOh this uses more bandwidth than I thought,\u201d or, \u201cOh this doesn\u2019t really use bandwidth.\u201d Something else they were able to see was, \u201cOh no one is using my computer, but something is going on.\u201d And that gave them the idea that there are other processes happening on the computer even when no one\u2019s using it.\n\n\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EQ:\u003C\/strong\u003E What did you find?\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMarshini Chetty:\u003C\/strong\u003E We found that making this information more visible and accessible to people actually engaged them and helped them learn about what was going on. In other words, even though networking is technical, if you give it to people in a way they can understand, the average person can understand something about bandwidth.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhen we started off the study I asked people, \u201cWhat is bandwidth?\u201d Some people didn\u2019t know what that was. When we ended the study, people who didn\u2019t know anything about bandwidth before the study were saying, \u201cOh, I\u2019m gonna limit your bandwidth now and, YouTube uses this\u2026,\u201d  things that they just wouldn\u2019t have said before the study. They were able to learn that and it was nice to confirm it.\n\n\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhat was surprising was, even though we\u2019re providing a very strict set of information, we\u2019re not showing you URLs that people are going to, nothing privacy violating, people were still worried about what they can infer about the data. So, you have kids saying things like, \u201cOkay, I don\u2019t necessarily know that I want people in the house to be able to confirm that I am the bandwidth hog.\u201d Or, roommates saying, \u201cWell, does this mean I have to pay more for bandwidth, because I\u2019m the one using a lot?\u201d So, even though it\u2019s very basic, people worry about how they\u2019re being presented in the system. How are other people going to read them?\n\n\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAnd then, there are the control issues. Who gets to be in control? Is it something like a thermostat, where anyone can change it? In this case, it\u2019s directly linked to someone\u2019s activity on the Internet so it\u2019s not quite the same. So those were the two major things.  How to represent yourself in the system and then who gets to control it.\n\n\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIt raised a lot of questions, like where should you put a tool like this in the house, should it have a password? Who\u2019s going to control it? Is it Mom and Dad? Is it one master roommate?\n\n\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EQ:\u003C\/strong\u003E Did you find that the use of Home Watcher was mainly limited to the guru in the family?\n\n\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMarshini Chetty\u003C\/strong\u003E: This is actually another goal of mine, to empower people who are not the guru to get involved in networking so they don\u2019t have to depend on that person if that person isn\u2019t there and the Internet goes down. In some cases it was the guru that we signed up, so they were more interested in it. But in other cases, it wasn\u2019t. So, it definitely seemed to appeal to a broader variety of people. Another thing with Home Watcher is I think the computer is very scary to some people. It\u2019s just so complicated and so on. So taking it out and making it a separate appliance made it easier. It\u2019s like, \u201cOh I can just do these few things.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EQ:\u003C\/strong\u003E How is your system, Kermit, different from Home Watcher?\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMarshini Chetty\u003C\/strong\u003E: Because it\u2019s getting its data from the router, anything that connects to the Internet shows up on Kermit \u2013 iPhones, iPads, PS3s, Macs, Windows machines, you name it. It also shows you who\u2019s online, who\u2019s hogging the bandwidth and how much bandwidth each computer on the network is using. The main difference is that it also shows you an estimated speed that you\u2019re getting from your provider. Also, Kermit can run on any computer in the home network and you can control it from any home computer. I\u2019m currently testing it in eight households to find out more about the politics of visibility and control.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ECreating networking tools that anyone can use to monitor Internet speed. \u003Cem\u003ESource: Office of Communications\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Creating networking tools that anyone can use"}],"uid":"27310","created_gmt":"2010-04-01 12:44:08","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:05:49","author":"David Terraso","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2010-04-12T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2010-04-12T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"55208":{"id":"55208","type":"image","title":"Home Watcher","body":null,"created":"1449175507","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 20:45:07","changed":"1475894489","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:41:29","alt":"Home Watcher","file":{"fid":"190257","name":"homewatcher.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/homewatcher_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/homewatcher_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":291841,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/homewatcher_0.jpg?itok=odat3WhH"}},"55196":{"id":"55196","type":"image","title":"Marshini Chetty","body":null,"created":"1449175507","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 20:45:07","changed":"1475894489","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:41:29","alt":"Marshini Chetty","file":{"fid":"190253","name":"Chetti_34.cropped.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/Chetti_34.cropped_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/Chetti_34.cropped_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1538075,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/Chetti_34.cropped_0.jpg?itok=BzyoT3mh"}}},"media_ids":["55208","55196"],"groups":[{"id":"1183","name":"Home"}],"categories":[{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"143","name":"Digital Media and Entertainment"}],"keywords":[{"id":"3388","name":"Broadband"},{"id":"9066","name":"chetty"},{"id":"1946","name":"GVU"},{"id":"4978","name":"home"},{"id":"2229","name":"Internet"},{"id":"9065","name":"kermit"},{"id":"9067","name":"marshini"},{"id":"335","name":"Microsoft"},{"id":"9064","name":"watcher"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGeorgia Tech Media Relations\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ELaura Diamond\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:laura.diamond@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Elaura.diamond@comm.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-894-6016\u003Cbr \/\u003EJason Maderer\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:maderer@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Emaderer@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-660-2926\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["david.terraso@comm.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}