Feeling like you live on the Outer Rim of a spiral Star Wars-like galaxy for internet speed, all but forgotten by the movers and shakers closer to the gravitational centers of power at Coruscant/ Washington and/or Madison?

Enter the broadband survey, an internet speed measuring tool put out by the Clark County Economic Development Corportation (CCEDC) and available by link on the Stanley-Boyd Schools website as part of a county-wide initiative to support better broadband service in Clark County, even being used for potential grant requests.

With reponses being sought by March 15, Stanley-Boyd district residents can click “broadband speed testing” under “Parents/Students” on the district’s homepage, while Clark County residents in general can go to https://clark-county- broadband-internet-survey-wcwrpc.hub.arcgis. com, where the same test is available as well.

To take the test with a few clicks on the district website or elsewhere, though, one first needs to accept the Measurement Lab’s (testing agencies) ‘data policy.’ So what’s that? Glad you asked! Within the “Privacy Policy” that elaborates on said 'data policy” agreed to prior to internet speed testing is the following: “M-Lab was developed to promote scientific, transparent, economics-and-politics-free analysis of Internet performance. To achieve this, we believe that scientific independence requires the resulting data to be made available to the wider public as raw data and allow for it to be queried with no limitation of time. This entails storing data forever. As a consequence we collect and make your data public under the legitimate interest basis for processing under GDPR.”

Directly below the above is the following: M-Lab’s datasets are one of the only publicly available data sources on Internet performance, and therefore are unique with respect to our claim of legitimate interest. We release all of the data collected through experiments into the public domain under an OSI-approved license. M-Lab waives all copyright and related rights in and to the experiment data. Everyone is free to use the open experiment data.”

Finally, under the “legal basis for the processing of Personal Data is one last clause, as follows: “We encourage third parties to make use of this data for research and other projects, illustrative examples of which are detailed on our publications page and data tools page. Third parties may use the experiment data for any purpose, without needing to seek prior permission from M-Lab. M-Lab cannot assert control over third parties’ use of the published data.”

Provided that survey participants are ok with the above and additional policy details after informed consent, it’s on to the fun stuff, with survey participants encouraged to run the test “multiple times per day” according to the principle that “internet speed can vary throughout the day.”

A separate form is provided to fill out for those without ANY internet service, with your local library able to help get you online, whereever you happen to reside.

At any rate, once the initial data collection is completed as of March 15 the survey data will be used in a bid to help bring better broadband to area residents who live in currently suboptimal areas.