The Internet is well along in the transition from an R&E network to a data infrastructure to support general commerce in addition to the varied uses that the Internet has developed over the years. New applications such as Internet Phone, virtual private networks, and point to point video services will soon become commonplace.
Unfortunately the Internet service providers have not yet begun to act like they are providing a service capable of supporting for-profit commercial use. If an organization were to purchase multi drop service from one provider they might be able to get that provider to include quality of service guarantees in their service description (though I have not many any so far). But obtaining any type of quality of service guarantee that spans multiple providers is impossible today.
If the Internet is to become anything remotely resembling its potential the service providers must start to work together to resolve quality of service problems, as the phone companies have done. The phone companies have, over many years, worked out detailed inter-organizational problem resolution procedures, the Internet service providers need to do the same thing.
Accurate tools and procedures to measure the performance and QoS of Internet service provider networks must be part of any such problem resolution system. One has to have objective facts when attempting to figure out where a problem lies that is affecting QoS for some particular data stream through the networks.
Figuring out what these tools and procedures are will not be easy. They have to be non-invasive, accurate, and repeatable while being able to maintain the privacy of information that may be considered company-confidential by many of the Internet providers.