Trai advises speed measurement apps to make methods public for comparison

Telecom regulator Trai on Monday mooted that speed measurement apps could make details of their methodologies, approach and other nuances available in public domain to enable users to compare, understand and interpret the results from such apps.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) released a “white paper” spelling out the methodology, approach and evaluation criteria for its own ‘MySpeed app’ that measures mobile data speeds of various operators through crowd sourcing method. “Since its launch, stakeholders have sought more details about the working methodology of the Trai MySpeed app. Some of them have also raised queries relating to the test results of the mobile app and network level values being reported on the analytical portal of Trai,” it said in a statement.

The paper which gives a glimpse into the methodology behind the working of the MySpeed app, concluded that measuring broadband speed is “a complex process”, whose outcome depends upon both the test methodology and test conditions. “Wide variations during the individual test of speed measurement may sometimes be observed because of network state and short time window of measurement,” Trai said.

Speed measurement may need to be presented with smaller distributions across districts or “geographical bins” and across different times of the day instead of being represented with a single value, it added.