We aim to to objectively characterise the service users experience from their home Internet connections. The attributes of an Internet connection (e.g., bandwidth and loss rate) dictate the service quality that can be achieved over it. American video use is increasing rapidly with 70% of broadband users under the age of 35 getting some of their TV from online sources. Measurement of such connections is crucial, their characterisation is useful not only for human users (so people know what service they can receive) but also for the users’ devices for adaptive behaviour. Furthermore, large-scale characterisation data of individual connections can be collated into a characterisation of the whole network. In this paper we will present a distributed measurement system that we have built and the choices that comprise its design.