Measuring the Internet – The Data Challenge

This working paper reviews a number of the challenges and opportunities confronting analysts interested in measuring the Internet and its economic and social impacts.

It identifies several additional challenges to the measurement issue, in addition to all of the normal problems one expects when measuring information and communication technologies (ICTs). These challenges are related to: the rapidly changing nature of the Internet, the need for more granular data in order to understand the complex nature of the Internet, and the phenomenon of big data and the resulting ability to measure almost anything.