Find All The Broadband Options At Any Street Address • Hacker News Board

Re: Find All The Broadband Options At Any Street Address

#11

Post by ANH » Fri, Feb 25, 2011, 1:05 AM UTC

This is practically useless for my semi-rural location. The listed speeds are so wrong it's hilarious. Yes, Verizon is a service provider here, but the only option is Mobile Broadband which peaks at about 1.3Mbps on a good day. The site makes it look like everyone out here has FiOS.

And they broke the back button when you navigate to the 'Engage' page.

Edit: And I'm really trying to find a way to confirm or refute the info, but I see no 'yes' or 'no' icons it claims are there.

Re: Find All The Broadband Options At Any Street Address

#12

Post by harold » Fri, Feb 25, 2011, 1:13 AM UTC

This data is not accurate, at least for me.

After calling AT&T and Verizon just now (both listed) they tell me I can't subscribe because they don't offer service here.

Re: Find All The Broadband Options At Any Street Address

#13

Post by pyre » Fri, Feb 25, 2011, 1:30 AM UTC

At my address it finds me several companies that are only offer business solutions with a choice of T-1/OC48/etc. Not exactly consumer broadband...

I like how the redirect to some of the providers' sites is a redirect to http://, even for big names like Comcast. If it does have a site, it's a redirect to e.g. http://http://example.com

Re: Find All The Broadband Options At Any Street Address

#14

Post by dhyasama » Fri, Feb 25, 2011, 1:35 AM UTC

I'm in Manhattan (so a rather large city) and use Time Warner which isn't listed for my address. My anecdotal evidence aside, this really cost $200 million? I'm pretty cynical, but there must be more to it.

Re: Find All The Broadband Options At Any Street Address

#15

Post by joeybaker » Fri, Feb 25, 2011, 1:46 AM UTC

russell_h wrote: post #5

This thing is so broken its not even funny. I tried it when it first came out and not a single one of the wired providers it listed will actually serve my address. The two that actually do serve my address weren't mentioned anywhere. Now when I search my address it doesn't show anything at all. I'm glad we spent $200 million on that.

It gets the providers right, but completely and utterly misses on the speed estimations.

Re: Find All The Broadband Options At Any Street Address

#16

Post by pitdesi » Fri, Feb 25, 2011, 1:58 AM UTC

It suggests I get satellite broadband. For my apartment in downtown Chicago. Government!

Re: Find All The Broadband Options At Any Street Address

#17

Post by whatusername » Fri, Feb 25, 2011, 2:06 AM UTC

Or in Australia (for any Landline phone number): http://bc.whirlpool.net.au/

Re: Find All The Broadband Options At Any Street Address

#18

Post by cema » Fri, Feb 25, 2011, 2:24 AM UTC

What, another example of lavishly founded government service?

I would understand the value of something like this in a poor or enterprise-unfriendly country. But in the US? If it has been funded with taxpayers' money, I say it's a waste.

Re: Find All The Broadband Options At Any Street Address

#19

Post by amalcon » Fri, Feb 25, 2011, 2:33 AM UTC

joeybaker wrote: post #15

russell_h wrote: post #5

This thing is so broken its not even funny. I tried it when it first came out and not a single one of the wired providers it listed will actually serve my address. The two that actually do serve my address weren't mentioned anywhere. Now when I search my address it doesn't show anything at all. I'm glad we spent $200 million on that.

It gets the providers right, but completely and utterly misses on the speed estimations.

My speed estimates for wired providers were both about an order of magnitude high.

Re: Find All The Broadband Options At Any Street Address

#20

Post by rbranson » Fri, Feb 25, 2011, 3:13 AM UTC

russell_h wrote: post #5

This thing is so broken its not even funny. I tried it when it first came out and not a single one of the wired providers it listed will actually serve my address. The two that actually do serve my address weren't mentioned anywhere. Now when I search my address it doesn't show anything at all. I'm glad we spent $200 million on that.

What you're looking at is probably all of the TIGER city blocks bounced against various zip code or county lists that the telecom companies provide. That's why if, for instance, AT&T has ANY U-verse coverage in your area, you will likely be flagged as receiving U-verse, even without being able to subscribe to it.

So I can say with pretty high certainty that the reason this sucks is because of the telecom lobby. There is an enormous amount of pressure on regulators to not require the telecom companies to disclose detailed information about where they provide what levels of service. Even information that's retrievable by going to their site and checking for coverage and/or service availability at an address. They most certainly have this information, but it's considered one of their most closely guarded trade secrets.

Those at the NTIA (and FCC to a degree) seem to be mostly interested in figuring out the minimum amount of disclosure they can give to meet the law-mandated requirements. This is the same old problem in Washington where the people who end up regulating are those that were plucked right out of highly-networked positions in the industry they regulate.