Global internet performance platform

ISPs and Regulators, find out how we can help you

Some of our customers

ISP

Network operators

Gain a better understanding of your customers’ real-world performance. Move beyond looking at the performance of individual routers and switches; capture end-to-end performance across dozens of metrics. Reporting for every stakeholder, from engineering and support to sales.

National

Regulators

A society with access to good quality internet connectivity is more likely to prosper. We look beyond speed alone to measure market competitiveness. We confirm that the products sold in your jurisdiction are the best they can possibly be.

R&D

Engineers

Test new products, services and infrastructure long before they’re launched. Ensure they deliver the expected results and don’t have any unintended side effects! We maintain tests to measure every type of application performance, with more tests being developed all the time.

Community

Academics & Coders

By sharing software, research and ideas, people from all over the world are contributing to the SamKnows community. At the same time, we contribute to other projects around the world by sharing our technology, open source software and data.

Success stories:

Network fault: Poor international performance

A popular gaming ISP released their new game but started to receive complaints saying that their online gaming performance was poor. After some analysis, it became clear that the traffic was being directed to a server in New York rather than a much closer one in Amsterdam. The ISP was able to use the SamKnows platform to demonstrate the significant increase in latency (which is very bad for gaming) to the gaming provider. They could then negotiate improved peering, ensuring that traffic was exchanged locally in Amsterdam rather than going overseas.

Success stories:

Network congestion: Increased latency during peak hours

An ISP started receiving complaints of intermittently slow downloads and delays when connecting to websites during peak hours. However, speed tests from the same customers via web-based tests did not show any degradation in performance. Through analysis of results collected by SamKnows Whiteboxes, the ISP was able to determine that there was a peak-hour increase in latency that was ultimately driven by localised congestion. The web-based tests used parallel TCP connections and were masking the effects.

Success stories:

Network fault: BRAS firmware

An ISP began receiving complaints about periodic drops in download speed. The customers were asked to run web-based speed tests - each test showed everything was perfect. The ISP deloyed some SamKnows probes to these customers as a last resort before they moved ISP. The single-TCP connections results were highly erratic. Viewing the SamKnows dashboard, the ISP could see that after deploying single-TCP connection tests, it revealed that the issue was clustered in regions. The ISP looked back through their change logs and found a correlation - all of these customers were connected with routers that had their firmware updated. The firmware bug was patched up and as you can see from the graph above, service resumed as normal.

Our global reach

The SamKnows internet measurement platform is actively testing in over 40 countries on behalf of telecoms regulators and ISPs.

How we test end-to-end

The Whitebox

Fast, low-power, cost-effective, hardware measurement probe for home deployments. Now on its 8th generation, it's the best money can buy. Installed in over 100,000 homes.

Embedded software

You can embed our measurement software into your CPE, giving you all the functionality of The Whitebox without the extra device, plus you can deploy it across your entire network!

Test servers

We have more than 500 test servers around the globe, each with high-capacity links to ensure accurate measurements. You can provision your own test servers inside your network as well.

Mobile app

Our mobile apps allow you to measure mobile and Wi-Fi performance on the go, as well as in-home measurements if the user has a Whitebox or SamKnows-enabled CPE.

New features constantly being developed

Customisable dashboard

Keep the data that’s most valuable to you right at your fingertips. You can save any graph that you generate on the global platform as a widget on your dashboard.

All under one roof

Whitebox data, routers with SamKnows embedded, mobile data and web test data - all viewable from the global dashboard.

Set up alerts if any metric starts to deviate

Spot any problems as soon as they happen and even fix them before a customer calls up to complain - really handy.

It's like having an engineer in all your customers' homes

With The Whitebox installed you don’t have to send a truck. Once identified, the problem may be fixed remotely, or by the customer, saving you money and burning less carbon.

Testing real applications generates real data

True end-to-end testing has to go all the way to the actual application (or service) on the internet to see what’s really going on. Now you can see the whole picture.

Collecting metadata to enable granular filtering

What is their router model? What version is their firmware? How far are they from the exchange? Do they have a cat? You can filter the data in lots of new ways.

Customising test schedules

You can create handy sub-groups of users within the dashboard - great for comparing people who are trying out a new service. Give them a unique test schedule to put through its paces.

Test new products before they launch

Whether it’s a new tier of broadband, a new data-hungry service or a minor infrastructure upgrade. SamKnows Analytics can give you real-world results before it hits the real world.

Key benefits for ISPs

Benchmarking across the industry

SamKnows is trusted by ISPs and regulators all over the world to provide independent, reliable, fair and accurate internet performance data. Data ISPs can trust; data that customers can trust. True and comparable ISP benchmarking.

Win the hearts of your customers

Being able to see exactly what's going on with a customer’s connection not only helps you fix problems faster, but also helps you empathise, understand and communicate more efficiently with your customers.

Find problems before your customers start complaining

Proactive troubleshooting could save you a lot of money in customer support, significantly reduce customer churn, and save you a truck roll. Set up alerts to notify your engineers as soon as performance deviates from typical levels.

Performance doesn’t stop at the end of the telephone line

You might have data on each individual switch, server or local exchange on your network, but unless you test end-to-end from the internet to the users’ homes, you will never know your customers’ actual quality of experience.

Customer acquisition

We are a globally trusted, independent voice on internet performance. Adhere to our code of good ISP behaviour and we could give your acquisition efforts a boost.

Customer happiness

Not seeing what is going on can be incredibly frustrating. Save your customers some worry (and a day off work to wait for an engineer), while saving yourself some money.

Customer retention

We can help you understand your customers’ unique situations better. Give them the very best support by resolving their issues quicker. Keep customers loyal for longer.

Join us, everyone is welcome here

Whether you’re an ISP, a national regulator, a product manager, a government official, or a large corporation - we want everybody to join our global platform. The more people we can work with, the more valuable our data is for you and for the internet as a whole. We want to make the world a better place one sweet megabit at a time, but to do that we need your help (and your data).

Get in touch