Project to open-source SpeedUpLouisville for use by other local governments and community organizations interested in learning more about internet speeds, service, and quality in their community.
In April 2016, Louisville Metro Government’s OPI2 Innovation Team, PowerUp Labs and other partners launched a web-based application aimed to increase transparency about Internet service quality in Louisville. Now, Louisville is working with partners to open source "SpeedUp" so that any local government or organization can launch this application for their community.
The application, SpeedUpLouisville.com, the local deployment of "SpeedUp", collects and publicly shares user-generated information about local broadband service speeds, rates and service quality in Louisville. It also incorporates the Measurement Lab Test, which is integrated with Google.com, and greatly increases the number of tests that the application collects. SpeedUp can help citizens, businesses, policymakers and others better understand where Louisville residents can access high-quality Internet service, and where there are needs.
Once collected, the data is displayed on an interactive map and available for free download, with the goal of increasing transparency about Internet service quality in Louisville and to continue the conversation around fiber in our community. Citizens can visit SpeedUpLouisville.com from any device to take the free Internet service test. The data provided by the test and short survey will be stored in a publicly available database, combined with other results, and published to the map and to SpeedUpLouisville.com in a form that does not identify contributors. This test does not collect information about personal Internet traffic such as emails, web searches, or other personally identifiable information.
The SpeedUpLouisville.com project started at a local civic hackathon led by the Civic Data Alliance and hosted by Code Louisville. Eric Littleton, Jon Matar and the PowerUp Labs software development team later volunteered to continue the work started during the hackathon. LVL1, a local makerspace, also provided funding for the paid web tools required to complete the project.