Study

Participate in Our Internet Study

The Internet Equity Initiative is seeking volunteers to participate in a study that measures the performance of home Internet connections to better understand Internet performance and access in urban communities.

Motivation

Internet access is crucial for work, education, and entertainment, but like many resources, not everyone has the same access or the same quality of connection. We need better data to guide investment in communities. By participating in this study, you can provide evidence that may help bridge the digital divide in your community.

Our goals are to:

Produce fine-grained data on Internet performance across the city;
Identify the bottlenecks for Internet access;
Help identify where targeted investment would have the greatest impact.
Help organizations evaluate the impact of their investments in digital equity and broadband infrastructure

Chicago Study

Our study in Chicago focuses on measuring how well the Internet functions across different communities in the city. We are mainly focused on collecting performance data from the South Shore and Logan Square neighborhoods. The study has run since October 2021 and will continue through 2023. Participants can earn up to $125 for full participation.

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Detroit Study

Our study in Detroit is just beginning. We will start with a small pilot recruitment with the goal of increasing our participation through 2023. We are seeking volunteers who live in the Hope Village neighborhood of the city. The City of Detroit plans to build an open-access fiber network starting in 2023. We hope to collect performance data in Hope Village before and after the fiber network is deployed to provide solid evidence of the new infrastructure's impact on Internet quality. Participants can earn up to $125 for full participation.

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