diff --git a/CHANGES.rst b/CHANGES.rst
index cf0a14a..a53f838 100644
--- a/CHANGES.rst
+++ b/CHANGES.rst
@@ -20,6 +20,10 @@ develop
 * Emit `django.core.signals.request_finished` to close DB connection and 
   yield to other greenlets between processing messages from WebSocket.
 * Back to universal wheels, thanks to PEP-0496 environment markers.
+* Expand test suite coverage to start a DDP server instance and perform
+  a HTTP GET request, no WebSocket/DDP tests yet.  Fails in Pyton 3
+  because of a bug in `gevent-websocket`
+  (https://bitbucket.org/noppo/gevent-websocket/issues/54/python-3-support).
 * Fix for #23 (Python 3 compatibility).
 * Set `application_name` on PostgreSQL async connection.
 * Send `django.core.signals.request_finished` when closing WebSocket.
diff --git a/dddp/tests.py b/dddp/tests.py
index 10c656e..3f98d06 100644
--- a/dddp/tests.py
+++ b/dddp/tests.py
@@ -1,9 +1,16 @@
 """Django DDP test suite."""
+from __future__ import unicode_literals
 
 import doctest
+import errno
 import os
+import socket
 import unittest
+from django.test import TestCase
 import dddp.alea
+from dddp.main import DDPLauncher
+# pylint: disable=E0611, F0401
+from six.moves.urllib_parse import urljoin
 
 os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = 'dddp.test.test_project.settings'
 
@@ -12,12 +19,73 @@ DOCTEST_MODULES = [
 ]
 
 
+class DDPServerTestCase(TestCase):
+
+    """Test case that starts a DDP server."""
+
+    server_addr = '127.0.0.1'
+    server_port_range = range(8000, 8080)
+    ssl_certfile_path = None
+    ssl_keyfile_path = None
+
+    def setUp(self):
+        """Fire up the DDP server."""
+        self.server_port = 8000
+        kwargs = {}
+        if self.ssl_certfile_path:
+            kwargs['certfile'] = self.ssl_certfile_path
+        if self.ssl_keyfile_path:
+            kwargs['keyfile'] = self.ssl_keyfile_path
+        self.scheme = 'https' if kwargs else 'http'
+        for server_port in self.server_port_range:
+            self.server = DDPLauncher(debug=True)
+            self.server.add_web_servers(
+                [
+                    (self.server_addr, server_port),
+                ],
+                **kwargs
+            )
+            try:
+                self.server.start()
+                self.server_port = server_port
+                return  # server started
+            except socket.error as err:
+                if err.errno != errno.EADDRINUSE:
+                    raise  # error wasn't "address in use", re-raise.
+                continue  # port in use, try next port.
+        raise RuntimeError('Failed to start DDP server.')
+
+    def tearDown(self):
+        """Shut down the DDP server."""
+        self.server.stop()
+
+    def url(self, path):
+        """Return full URL for given path."""
+        return urljoin(
+            '%s://%s:%d' % (self.scheme, self.server_addr, self.server_port),
+            path,
+        )
+
+
+class LaunchTestCase(DDPServerTestCase):
+
+    """Test that server launches and handles GET request."""
+
+    def test_get(self):
+        """Perform HTTP GET."""
+        import requests
+        resp = requests.get(self.url('/'))
+        self.assertEqual(resp.status_code, 200)
+
+
 def load_tests(loader, tests, pattern):
     """Specify which test cases to run."""
     del pattern
     suite = unittest.TestSuite()
     # add all TestCase classes from this (current) module
     for attr in globals().values():
+        if attr is DDPServerTestCase:
+            continue  # not meant to be executed, is has no tests.
         try:
             if not issubclass(attr, unittest.TestCase):
                 continue  # not subclass of TestCase
diff --git a/requirements-test.txt b/requirements-test.txt
index dc85271..a5c10fa 100644
--- a/requirements-test.txt
+++ b/requirements-test.txt
@@ -1,2 +1,2 @@
 # things required to run test suite
-# (nothing required! we use unittest from stdlib...)
+requests==2.9.0
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 9b0ca55..c310252 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -150,6 +150,9 @@ setuptools.setup(
     },
     classifiers=CLASSIFIERS,
     test_suite='dddp.test.run_tests',
+    tests_require=[
+        'requests',
+    ],
     cmdclass={
         'build': Build,
     },