No single ISP possesses enough high-quality data on internet performance

The internet, with its sprawling infrastructure, is incredibly extensive and technically challenging to build and maintain, making it a costly venture. Hundreds of thousands of miles of undersea cables—buried up to thousands of meters beneath the ocean surface—facilitate most intercontinental data transmission and demand regular upkeep. Given the enormity and cost of the internet infrastructure, it is beyond the scope of any single company or country to construct and sustain it. The ownership of this infrastructure is not exclusive to Internet Service Providers (ISPs); it is shared among larger ISPs, infrastructure investment funds, and leading tech firms such as Google and Facebook.

This highly fragmented ownership results in no single ISP (or other industry stakeholder) having access to performance data spanning the entire internet infrastructure. Yet, customers rely heavily on this infrastructure for their daily online activities, including accessing popular global websites. Consequently, when there is a drop in internet performance, ISPs face significant challenges in identifying the cause due to inadequate data visibility regarding where the issue is occurring.

Moreover, ISPs might not always gather the most accurate data to resolve customer issues. While ISPs commonly collect performance data through network probes located within their own networks, they do not necessarily measure performance data at the customer's point of experience—inside the customer's home. Implementing such a measure poses operational difficulties for ISPs, as they would need to individually contact customers and seek their permission.

Furthermore, ISPs' network tests are primarily focused on technical performance indicators (QoS), such as the speed of data transmission through specific cables. They do not typically collect data that reflects the actual customer experience (QoE), which can differ greatly and is the key concern for customers.