National Broadband Map Shows Digital Divide 182
Hugh Pickens writes writes "PC Magazine reports that the Commerce Department has unveiled a national broadband inventory map, which will allow the public to see where high-speed Internet is available throughout the country. Users can search by address, view data on a map, or use other interactive tools to compare broadband across various geographies, such as states, counties or congressional districts. Commerce officials say the information can help businesses decide if they want to move to a certain location, based on broadband availability. The map, costing about $200 million and financed through the 2009 Recovery Act, shows that 5-10 percent of Americans lack broadband access at speeds that support a basic set of applications. Another 36 percent lack access to wireless service. Community anchor institutions like schools and libraries are also 'largely underserved,' the data finds, and two-thirds of surveyed schools subscribe to speeds lower than 25 Mbps and only 4 percent of libraries subscribe to speeds greater than 25 Mbps. 'The National Broadband Map shows there are still too many people and community institutions lacking the level of broadband service needed to fully participate in the Internet economy,' says Larry Strickling, assistant secretary of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). 'We are pleased to see the increase in broadband adoption last year, particularly in light of the difficult economic environment, but a digital divide remains.'"
$200 million? (Score:3)
Really? I'd of done it for a paltry $150 million.
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That's a steal at $0.50 cents per person. A fancy gold plated push pin on the map for every American!
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What I find amazing is that it cost $200m, doesn't state prices or actual speeds. And they're actually proud of that. Did common sense go out the window? Or is the majority of people these days skipping that trait during character creation?
I bet it would have worked on firefox 2.0.0.8, too (Score:2)
Really? I'd of done it for a paltry $150 million.
I bet it would have worked on firefox 2.0.0.8, too.
Apparently $200,000,000 doesn't pay for testing on a range of browsers.
If I could display the government's map I'd take a look at how much stuff it downloaded. I bet it's so bloated it's only viewable over broadband.
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Doesn't work on chrome....
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I'm running Chrome and it appears to work fine...slow, but you can't blame the browser for that.
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Yes, this is why when people bitch and moan about cuts I have no sympathy whatsoever. There is no federal government agency that should not take a SEVERE budget cut no matter what it is the WASTE that goes on is simply mind blowing.
That said since the money is already spent and at least we do have a pretty map to show for it. I do find it interesting how well covered with wired broad band solutions places like Maine actually are. It looks like the midwest is actually well served as well. It seems to be
Coverage along state borders (Score:2)
I do find it interesting how well covered with wired broad band solutions places like Maine actually are. It looks like the midwest is actually well served as well. It seems to be only the Western United states that is problematic.
The most striking part to me was the fact that I could see coverage or lack thereof follow state borders. For example, in the DSL and DSL+cable maps, Indiana has far better coverage than its neighbors (in fact some of the best in the Union), and North Dakota sucks $private_part compared to its neighbors South Dakota and Minnesota.
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I know this is /., but it was $20m to make the map, and most of the rest of the $180m or so was collecting the data. Not sure how reasonable that is, but that's how they broke it down. Given that you're taking about 50 states plus DC, that's roughly 30m per state on average. Again, I'm not sure what it should costs, but getting reliable data is hard and expensive, the previous method was determining if there was at least one connection in the zip code that met the definition of broadband, the entire zip cod
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Agreed. I looked up my house, my mom-in-law's condo and my mom's house.
All three are incorrect in significant ways.
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Ditto. They showed 3 possible connections for my house, Charter, Verizon & Beasley Wireless, a little local WISP that I tried to get to work for over 2 years, until I got tired of only having internet between 11pm and 4am. and charter doesn't come within 2 miles of my place.
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Agreed. This map claims I get Time Warner service 10 mbps-25 mbps. I can get cable, but no internet service is offered (believe me, I call them every month). They're just comparing zip codes or some bull.
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dslreports says it cost $293 million; $200 million is how much it will cost every 5 years.
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Meet-The-United-States-First-Ever-Broadband-Map-112787
All that money and they couldn't make each connectivity technology uniquely color coded? That's a pretty rookie display.
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ABC News said the total would be $200 million over 5 years, which sounds more plausible. I quote:
"The raw data for the map comes from roughly 1,650 Internet service providers — primarily phone, cable and wireless companies — across the country. The NTIA awarded grants to government agencies or non-profits in every state to collect, confirm and package the data to go into the nationwide map, which was then compiled by the NTIA and the FCC. The total price tag of the map, which will be updated twi
Re:$200 million? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Census as spelled out in the Constitution (Article 1, Section 2) has two purposes: it determines the number of representatives each state gets to elect and send to the House of Representatives. Unlike the Senate wherein each state gets two representatives, the House is proportional to the population of each state. It also determines the number of electoral votes a state may cast during a Presidential election.
It's not unreasonable to want the government to stick to the actual limited purpose of this power, instead of finding clever ways to exceed the Constitutional mandate to go beyond the scope of what the Founders intended. If they really want to do that, there is a Constitutional amendment process that would make it legitimate and that's the part I think you fail to appreciate. Intrusive questions like those about your income and lifestyle have absolutely nothing to do with the requirement that the House and electoral votes are properly apportioned.
Otherwise, those who refuse to answer the Census with anything more than the Constitutionally-required data are implicitly recognizing one important fact: information is a form of power. There are many who quite rationally believe that the U.S. Federal Government is already too powerful. Just to make the point, there have already been abuses of this data. In fact, it greatly facilitated the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. This was made possible because the Second War Powers Act of 1941 repealed all of the legal confidentiality protections that would normally apply to the Census data, which were not restored until 1947.
If you know anything about the U.S. Federal Government and the kind of people who make its important decisions, then you have to wonder whom they will next target. Maybe it will be Muslims or people of Middle Eastern descent, since we are currently fighting them overseas. History does have this annoying way of repeating itself. Refusing to help that happen is not a matter of spiting the government or anyone else; it's a recognition that there is no dire need for them to know so much about you and that this information can be and has been abused. I don't question the reason of those who understand this; I question the naivete of those who don't.
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It's not unreasonable to want the government to stick to the actual limited purpose of this power, instead of finding clever ways to exceed the Constitutional mandate to go beyond the scope of what the Founders intended. If they really want to do that, there is a Constitutional amendment process that would make it legitimate and that's the part I think you fail to appreciate. Intrusive questions like those about your income and lifestyle have absolutely nothing to do with the requirement that the House and electoral votes are properly apportioned.
I certainly hope that you also take a stern view on the Air Force. It's unconstitutional! I see an Army. I see a Navy. I don't see an Air Force. [cornell.edu]
It's a real shame all the Founder(tm) were dead when the 4th census asked occupation [censusfinder.com]. Oh wait, they weren't. Since when are anonymous metrics needed to determine the most effective allocation of resources "abusive"?
I bet you also didn't know that the Founders(tm) were a completely happy with compulsory purchase programs. George Washington himself [constitution.org], signed the
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At least George Washington also stated that the party system would
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You forget, even the very first census just 3 years after the Constitution was ratified asked questions about age, race, and gender, in addition to the required (at the time) question of whether they were slaves or free persons.
At the time the age and gender questions were appropriate as well, because women and children generally didn't have the vote but did count toward representation. While the federal elections were operated by the states primarily under their own rules, the information was appropriate
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I would be careful if I were you. Don't let them know that you have read the Constitution. They prefer ignorant drudges. Obama is hiding under your bed, and as soon as you fall asleep, he's going to sneak out and take all your guns. And your gold. You are hoarding gold, aren't you? After the collapse, all you will be able to buy with the fiat money will be Fiats, and everyone knows they are made in that soon-to-be-Muslim-Caliphate Italy.
Watch out!!
Is this mockery your way of saving face upon realizing that I have provided rational, non-paranoid reasoning for why limited government that does not try to exceed its enumerated powers is a Good Thing? I suppose it upsets you when it suddenly becomes difficult to portray everyone who disagrees with you as some kind of paranoid lunatic, like an unruly child who just had his toy taken away.
Hell, you're an AC, there's not much "face" to save really. Anyway if you're feeling low and in need of an echo chambe
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The government your talking about though can't exist inside a captialist economy. Because captialism is all about exceeding your powers.
You are quite correct, however reality doesn't work that way, and humans aren't machines that always fall into nice places. some people will always believe they are better than others even if it isn't true.
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Is this mockery your way of saving face upon realizing that I have provided rational, non-paranoid reasoning for why limited government that does not try to exceed its enumerated powers is a Good Thing?
You've not explained where they exceeded their powers. They are allowed to perform a census. There is no mention of what that consists of, and no requirement it be restricted to solely the count of persons (and in fact, even the first census, performed by the very people that defined Census in the Constitution, didn't restrict themselves to solely the count of people). Additionally, they don't use the power to compel answers past the most basic to confirm the count you agree they can do. So I'm curious
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"Spite" is what drives politics for a significant portion of the electorate and about half the political leadership. When you're morally bankrupt and intellectually suspect, spite is all that's left.
For the electorate, when you've been through thirty years of watching your income and lifestyle eroded while a small portion of the population gains
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When the TV tells you that your world is crumbling because school teachers and firefighters are getting pensions, and your employer tells you that they've decided it's not "cost-effective" to continue to provide your pension, "spite" is what happens.
The TV shows on CNN that I watch at work say the opposite. If teachers have to pay for a portion of their pensions and a portion of their healthcare (like most Americans do,) the whole education system will collapse. I have been hearing that non-stop since the whole Wisconsin mess started.
It's funny, to me, that we are suppose to be angry at the rich for getting perks we don't get but then are suppose to turn a blind eye to the police and teacher unions for getting the same. Just like the rich CEO gettin
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>>>is there a serious argument that having a survey of the conditions in the country is not a valid function of government?
I don't have a problem with a survey - it could be considered part of the annual state of the union report. I have a problem if they say I HAVE to answer it, or else face jail time, like they did with the census. Answering that 1 person lives at my house? Cool. Answering what color I am, how old, how much money I make, and other shit? No.
I also have a problem if Congress t
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>>>what is the reason for your refusal?
(1) None of their damn business what color I am, what sex, how much I earn, how old, et cetera. (2) The Member States gave the central union government the authority to enumerate (count me) and nothing more. They were never given the authority to invade my privacy (see point one and amends.9 and 10).
>>>all that would happen from the other side of things is an absolute intransigent refusal to consider any change
What other side? The only thing that
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(1) None of their damn business what color I am, what sex, how much I earn, how old, et cetera. (2) The Member States gave the central union government the authority to enumerate (count me) and nothing more. They were never given the authority to invade my privacy (see point one and amends.9 and 10).
As I expected, the typical wall of refusal that admits no possibility for the other side to have reasons, just says "none of your damn business, don't intrude on my privacy". I can respect that you might think the government doesn't need to know any of that stuff, but with the institutionalized history of racism, sexism, and other discrimination, I'm afraid that's actually shown it's worth knowing. Why? Because true blindness is not possible to enforce, no matter how much any of us might wish it. Yes, y
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This is not an R versus D thing.
I think you are lying.
I'm just guessing you're a D rather than an R.
Yup, you agree with me that you are a liar. If it wasn't an R vs D thing, then you wouldn't presume someone for a more detailed and accurate census is a Democrat.
Let me guess, you take the R opinion that even if it is known that someone wasn't counted, the fact they weren't counted should not be considered and only those officially counted by official census workers should be counted, and no other means of counting should ever be considered.
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The whole point of having a constitution in a state is that it's something that you don't easily skirt around. If you want to call it "faith" or "dogma", fine (though it's not, really, due to amendment process). But finding creative ways to reinterpret it to "adapt" it to new requirements is bad, because it devalues the document in its entirety, including the very fundamental protections it spells out.
Oh, and just because there's no law prohibiting the Feds to collect data doesn't mean that they can do it.
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they've all.....
not they all.....
/. News Networks (Score:4, Insightful)
Today's top story is how prominent ISPs received government funding to extend broadband access to more of America and blew it on bonuses and advertisement. And possibly blow.
In related news, ISPs are complaining about how expensive people who use their entire bandwidth allotment are.
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What? no hookers and wiskey? They didn't get their monies worth.
Indiana (Score:3)
Indiana seems to have remarkably high penetration of DSL compared to its neighbors. Three of its borders are clearly demarcated. Is there any explanation for this?
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Yeah, I don't buy it. In Southern Manitoba - an area with half West Virginia's population, and four times the land area, there's nearly complete broadband penetration [ic.gc.ca] (pdf file).
Montana and Alaska are sparsely populated. The interior of Australia are sparsely populated, as is northern Canada. A good 2/3rds of West Virginia has > 10 people per sq. mile. That's practically jamming people in.
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Yeah, I don't buy it. In Southern Manitoba - an area with half West Virginia's population, and four times the land area...
...and from what Google Maps shows me, essentially none of the mountains. I don't know if that's a factor or not, but I'd think at least it could be.
Montana and Alaska are sparsely populated.
According to the map, broadband penetration in Alaska is pretty sparse, too. FWIW, I live in Alaska and work for one of the companies that provides broadband up here (and I used to work for a different one). What you will find in AK is relatively good service in Anchorage, Fairbanks and Juneau, with progressively crappier service the farther you get from th
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Re:Indiana (Score:4, Funny)
Indiana seems to have remarkably high penetration of DSL compared to its neighbors...
I hate to do it. But I just feel compelled. You walked right into this.
"Thats what she said"
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You're not doing it right.
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Colorado, the Dakotas, and Kansas have the weird service-stopping-at-their-borders thing going on in the wireless.
Canadian Broadband (Score:3, Informative)
Just an FYI currently where I am at (southern Alberta, just outside of Lethbridge). I am maxed out at 3Mbps down on a good day when my DSL isn't bottlenecked from the DSLAM. On average I get about 1.7Mbps with 120ms Ping to most places.
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Blame Canada! Blame Canada!
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You poor fellow. My connection at work is a T1 -- a symmetric 1.5Mbit connection shared by no less than 30 people, not to mention two externally accessible websites which are hosted on the same connection. And yes, it's absolutely the best connection available at that location. For anything over ~400MB in size, it's literally faster for me to remote into my home setup, start a download, drive home to pick it up, and drive back to work. And for what it's worth, this is less than 2 miles outside the borde
Really not that bad..... (Score:2)
According to DSLreports.com:
99% of the country is already connected to high speed internet via wireless 3G connections. That only leaves a few nomads living in deserts or montana ranches that can not get "broadband" internet.
*
* BTW what is broadband? 100 MHz width? 500 MHz? I've never seen it defined other than the loose "greater than a phoneline's 4 kHz" definition.
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* BTW what is broadband?
An upgrade from 300 baud to 14400 without any government assistance.
Enjoy,
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Or in a valley that is poorly covered by cells. I have a co-worker who can't get anything beyond dial-up because she is too far out of town (2 miles, maybe) and is nowhere near cable. This is in Western Wisconsin, perhaps 30 miles from downtown St. Paul, MN.
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I don't think it should be a point of accomplishment that 99% of the country is connected to a low speed option. In most cases, our highest speed wired broadband connections are slower than the slowest wireless (4G) connections available in other countries. Especially since it's the result of us paying for the lines and then handing them over to monopolies for whom it is in their best interest to hold back and artificially restrict service capacities.
At the same time, the map shows (*shock*!) that the dense
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Broadband is the speed at which porn can be downloaded at an erotically acceptable pace to maintain en erection.
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Anyone who routinely updates/downloads software over the internet will violate their cap. Anyone who
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Here's the quote for those who are curious: "Granted, Obama did say "next-generation" wireless, but given the current debate around the definition of fourth generation (4G) wireless, that term now technically includes every variety of mobile broadband faster than 256kbps. It's certain a vast majority of the public will see "next generation" 4G wireless within the next five years without the government lifting a finger.
"That makes this promise much like the FCC's promise to bring 100 Mbps service to 100 Mil
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Up until recently BB was defined as 756k. There's been a move to redefine as 3mbps or 5mbps but as far as I know FCC hasn't pulled the trigger on this.
And it's not just Montana that doesn't get BB wired or wireless. My folks live not 8 miles from a town of 8,000 people (and in a community of at least 40 homes) and can't get cell service (even analog) let along 3g. And no DSL/Cable either.
Missing some data (Score:3, Insightful)
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You expect it to be perfect for $200 million? They passed up the perfect option, it was $200 billion. They would have gone for that option but the company was run by replicans and the dems just couldn't bring themselves to pay them.
Hey, at least you got a map. it's /.ed for me. Actually, it finally DID work. It shows I have broadband, however it is NOT available to me. I was talking to someone working with this on the state level, and they said the initiative says that if ONE person in a zipcode has a
I wonder.. (Score:2)
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It isn't really. Make sure you select Cable DOCSIS 3.0 and Fiber to the End User in order to compare broadband as broadband is defined in other countries (Europe, Asia). I don't consider my copper DSL (2Mbps/256k) or Cable (10/1Mbps offered, 3Mbps/512k actual) options here to be very broadband. The only places I do get 10Mbps is against benchmarking sites (very suspiciously it actually goes to 15/3Mbps sometimes on those sites even though the company says it can't go faster than 10).
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My 10/1 Mbs Cable in Maine is consistently above 8 Mbps even at peak times. The upload does leave something to be desired, maybe somewhere around 512k.
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Suspicious? It means they're giving you more than you pay for. The speeds they advertise are maximum speeds... there are many servers on the Internet that can't sustain 10Mbps downloads, and there are many reasons why it may be slow getting all the way to you. Benchmarking sites are selected because they have excess bandwidth that they can play with. What about something like Netflix... does that go fast for you?
Really, 10Mbps may not be blow your hair back fast, but it's most certainly "broadband" as far a
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I can barely stream 720p from YouTube. I should be able to stream 1080p H.264 but it can't, takes forever to load. The more I YouTube however, the slower it gets - the first 2-3 (20 minute) videos work well but then they start buffering while if I go to the YouTube benchmark site which works full throttle.
NetFlix and other channels (such as Comedy Central) works well at first but then (after 10 minutes) degrades further until it's no longer watchable on a 26 or 32" display. I've changed routers already thin
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Luxury,
The luddites in the previous government of my nation (Australia) declared anything over 56 K to be "broadband". Average speed here is about 1.4 Mbit\s and most of the nation is connected via ADSL 2RE
Nice job, Feds. (Score:4, Insightful)
Would have been nice to have put this map showing where the good connections are on a good connection so that more than 10 people can use it at once.
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For that to happen it would have cost $200 billion.
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And also have, you know, the entire United States visible when the map first loads.
Inadvertently hilarious title (Score:2)
"Are you being served?" turns out to be a funny question to ask when www.broadbandmap.gov [broadbandmap.gov] is incapable of doing so.
No Chrome? (Score:2, Offtopic)
Is it just me, or does this not work on Chrome?
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It worked after I disabled Flashblock.
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Rainier Wolfcastle: Ah! My eyes! The website . . .it does nothing!
Probably bunk (Score:3)
Tennessee has maintained a online map of broadband availability for some time. Except that it shows theoretical broadband availability instead of actual broadband availability. The federal map seems to be Slashdotted, but I'm betting it pulls from the same data sources and has the same problems.
The Tennessee map tracks cable, DSL, and cellular wireless/WiMAX. According to the map, my parents are serviced by both cable and cellular wireless.
Except that my parents live at the bottom of a valley and can't get any cell phone signal where they live. And since they live a mile off the main road, the cable company wants $4k to pull cable down to their house.
So my parents have no broadband. There's a BellSouth DSLAM a mile from their house, but no DSL.
BellSouth promised to roll out DSL several years ago, purely coincidentally about the time that the local electric co-op was making noises about providing broadband. BellSouth/Charter/Comcast increased their political donations that year by a factor of 100, and again purely by coincidence the republican party passed a law to prevent public co-ops from getting into the internet business. Since the law was passed 3 years ago, BellSouth has been promising us DSL "within 6 months". I expect broadband to arrive in our neighborhood in the "Half-Life 23" timeframe.
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EBP is grandfathered in because it already offered internet before the bill was passed. CEMC (I live in Ashland City) wasn't.
http://www.nashvillepost.com/news/2008/4/7/cableatt_legislation_unveiled [nashvillepost.com]
Color me unimpressed w/ the map itself. (Score:2)
Usability = 5 out of 10
Speed = 4
Design = 6
5-10 percent? Not bad (Score:2)
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How come my city had FIOS for a couple years, but not in my neighborhood or big hill? Obviously, no DSL due to 20K ft. :(
View Source ... bloody incompetence (Score:2)
on home page. It begins:
[html comment code here]
[insert ascii art that /. won't let me use because o fthe 'junk characters' filter]
[//end html comment code]
And gets worse. Good bloody grief. Who the hell built this and who gave them the time machine from 1995 and no wonder it cost $200M, they evidently had to contribute to the time machine project.
Oh crap. Now /. (-- junk characters) wants me to use fewer 'junk characters.' Great. Let's just cut&paste from the OP:
[snip. didn't work.]
airports? WTF (Score:2)
What's the point in marking every little airport on the map? What does this have to do at ALL with airports. Let me show you ow rediculous this is. 1 mile from my house, there's a grass landing strip. The wealthy owner of a local company wanted his spoiled grown kid to learn how to fly. He was too rich to bother driving the 10 miles to the local airport, so he got the field behind his house designated as a landing strip for small aircraft. They came out and put the orange balls on the high tension pow
Amazing! (Score:2)
Gasp! It looks eerily like a population map of the United States! Amazing!
The Data Is Wrong (Score:2)
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This map is a joke. Wishful thinking at best. Qwest is shown in my neighborhood as providing 3-6Mbps down. Go to their site and type in the exact same address that I did and you'll find they offer up to 768Kbps down. My wireless broadband carrier is showing the same thing (3-6Mbps). Yet they only offer up to 2.5Mbps in my neighborhood, and you'll only get 500kbps during prime time (making Netflix unwatchable).
Here's why the map is really a joke. It asks for feedback -- "crowd-sourcing" they say. Howe
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It seems they do not want all of the facts, just some of them.
you find this unusual for something run by the government?
O'Rly? (Score:2)
According to this map, I have access to fiber to the end user? From Who?
Pug
Really 20 million for "just the map" (Score:2)
Not accurate (Score:2)
The map is not accurate. It says I have access to fiber (presumably FIOS), which I don't. It also claims I don't have access to Docsis 3 cable service, which I do.
And don't get me started on how spectacularly crappy it works on Safari and Firefox.
So how does one read the map? (Score:2)
I looked at its (rather small) maps for a few areas, but couldn't figure out how it was telling me about broadband coverage. The maps look normal, with big white and green zones that don't seem to correlate with anything I know about the territory. There are a few brown areas scattered around the map. Nowhere can I find anything saying what the colors might mean.
At the left, there are some bar graphs labelled with various kinds of Net access, but no obvious way to relate them to the maps. Poking arou
How about postcards? (Score:2)
Here's what I get when I type in my ZIP code:
And it shows a tiny little area of my town with some actual data. I think it's a new development.
With $200M they could have instead sent out postcards to a statistically representative sample of the population, licensed the speedtest.net technology, and had people pop in a unique code.
Kudos on the OpenStreetMap usage, though.
Are you being served? (Score:2)
Three Hundred Fifty Millon (Score:2)
There was $350M put aside for this map in the 2009 ARRA bill, and despite spending a bit more than $1/citizen, not one American will enjoy a faster internet connection because of the expenditure.
Bravo! A victory for style over substance! Why spend money to provide broadband connectivity when you can instead create a website for those folks with broadband connections to play the age-old game of comparing to who's got the faster connection speed!
Where's the other map? (Score:2)
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This is a silly "either or" fallacy, both could be done.
The merits of this study let us know the scope, and exactly where the problem lies. Only then can we really begin to fix it.
Doesn't proove that (Score:2)
Read the other responses here. What it proves is that the government cannot measure rural broadband access.
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It's so slow to remind you what it's like for the underprivileged Americans without broadband access living in...well, I have no idea since the damn map won't load.
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ASP Fail.
200 million bucks and they can't even support standard browser.
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Naah. Co-ops are sued by incumbents [timesfreepress.com] that are too lazy to actually build out the infrastructure that they've been taking federal money to do. Welcome to the future.
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Just obvious socialism with proletariats grouping together (practically a union and you know how evil unions are) getting money from Roosevelt's obvious fascist gov't, stolen from true blue American capitalists so that these 'people's' collectives can compete unfairly with hard working bankers and industrialists.
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