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The north east doesnt have this issue, the east coast in general not having much issues.

National broadband map Enable all of the top row items to see the real issue. The left coast just doesnt have the infrastructure over very wide swaths. Its all local problems in States whose people that think the Federal government should solve all their local problems for them. I dont know a single left coast person that knows jack about local politics.

Meanwhile in the north east clear through to Chicago just about everyone over the age of 60 is involved in local political matters on some level often in combination with local church matters, and this activity and knowledge transfers to their children and grandchildren based on the issues. People in the north east know when their local cable franchise agreements are up for re-issue, as well as when things like liquor licenses are going to be issues or renewed. North east people are politically active on a local level. They are an active part of their community. Dont know anyone on the left coast like that.

The large chunks of land with ultra low populations makes the population density even higher in those areas which have populations.

And that is actually why New Zealand is able to do this. I live in a state that is 1/10th the size of New Zealand but has about 50% more people, so the population density is an order of magnitude higher. Yet it takes the top 8 cities combined to match the population of Auckland alone. New Zealand has seven cities with more than 200,000 people; my state has one. The top 10 cities in New Zealand contain two thirds of the nation's population; the top 10 cities in the US don't even have one tenth of the nation's population. Overall, New Zealand has a slightly higher percentage of its population in urban areas (roughly 85% vs. 80%). Factor in the sheer number of municipalities that make up the US urban population (cities and towns in more than 3,000 counties across the 50 states) and the many different layers of bureaucracy that need to be traversed to get anything done and you'll start to get an idea of how complex a program like this would be in the US. For New Zealand, this requires coordinating about as many municipalities as there are in my county. Get back to me when they've done this 3,000 times in 50 different ways.

About 5% (let's be generous, and say 10%) of the US population has access to more than 100Mbps down and 50Mbps up. New Zealand is due to deliver it to 85% of theirs within a couple of years.

(I believe you meant to say "at least" and not "more than" because New Zealand is defining it as at least 100/50, not more than.) In terms of download speeds, you're off by an order of magnitude. No summary numbers are shown on this map from 2016, but a 2014 report put the number at about 60%. Upload speeds vary, with some as high as 100 Mbps for 100 Mbps download service but only 5 Mbps required to count toward these numbers. But that's to be expected with such a diverse infrastructure that has been upgraded several times over more than two decades.

The have very limited coverage in the Chicago area, and are not an option for the vast majority.

My husband works in HR there, and people aren't leaving Amazon as much as they are leaving Seattle. Many of the new hires are shocked to find-out that fast Internet access is only available in a tiny number of buildings in the region.

Too many young men move here then flee after getting tired of not having faster than dial-up access.

Bull. Fucking. Shit.

Broadband in Seattle is in line with the rest of the country, thank you. And where is it in the city of Seattle that you can't get "faster than dial-up access" speeds?

You mention "CondoInternet" as though it is the only option for "fast" - as if 1 Gbps+ is the only definition of "fast." Not only are there two other providers (according to the FCC report above) offering 1 Gbps+ Internet in Seattle, there are several others offering reasonable Internet speeds: in Woodinville (25 miles outside Seattle and close to the boondocks) where I live, Comcast (cursed be their name) offers 100 Mbps at reasonable prices.

So long story short, "young men" (why young men?) are not leaving Seattle because they can't get "faster than dial-up access" Internet. Either you are making this up completely, or you were somehow trying to find a way to mention "CondoInternet," which I will now try to find a way to avoid.

Comcast voted the 2014 "Worst Company In America".

It's interesting to note that Comcast encourages employees to abuse customers, and Comcast employees interpret that as permission to abuse Comcast.

There is an answer: Fire the Comcast CEO.

BroadbandMap.gov seems to show competition that doesn't exist as a way of fooling lawmakers, so that huge abusive corporations can limit competition.

"... despicable, deceitful and generally miserable..." You and Consumerist are too positive about Comcast. Where is dreadful, dastardly, dishonest, destructive, and demonic? And that's only the Ds.

Comcast voted the 2014 "Worst Company In America".

It's interesting to note that Comcast encourages employees to abuse customers, and Comcast employees interpret that as permission to abuse Comcast.

There is an answer: Fire the Comcast CEO.

BroadbandMap.gov seems to show competition that doesn't exist as a way of fooling lawmakers, so that huge abusive corporations can limit competition.

It's http://broadbandmap.gov/ (singular)

If the lower limit for the definition of "broadband" is increased to 10Mbps downloads, half the country currently receiving broadband as required by the Universal Service Fund will suddenly require massive capital improvements to upgrade service in remote areas. This has a knock-on effect for other ISPs advertising higher download speeds, which become a lesser value proposition when the minimum speed is raised.

SELF CORRECTION: I shot off my mouth with some numbers I heard the other day, but it turns out I either heard them wrong or they were reported incorrectly to begin with. This report seems to indicate that I got the 95% and 55% numbers basically correct, but that it's not "two or fewer", but rather "two or more". Mea culpa.

Internet speeds in Ann Arbor don't look significantly different than the rest of Metro Detroit or any other major metro area.

See for yourself.

http://www.broadbandmap.gov/sp...

I agree with you. And if the telephone cables are bad enough, upgrading the system to DSL could involve new lines :(

Looking at the map at
http://www.broadbandmap.gov/sp...
Coverage is pretty spotty anywhere but NJ,DE,RI,CN

http://www.broadbandmap.gov/su...
The above link has data on how many people have service. (What is a SBDD grantee, and does this skew the data?) It claims 93% have local access to >3Mb down on wires, 98% have >3Mb down wireless. (I find the latter figure _very_ hard to believe...)

I agree with you. And if the telephone cables are bad enough, upgrading the system to DSL could involve new lines :(

Looking at the map at
http://www.broadbandmap.gov/sp...
Coverage is pretty spotty anywhere but NJ,DE,RI,CN

http://www.broadbandmap.gov/su...
The above link has data on how many people have service. (What is a SBDD grantee, and does this skew the data?) It claims 93% have local access to >3Mb down on wires, 98% have >3Mb down wireless. (I find the latter figure _very_ hard to believe...)

Looking at the coverage maps, I'd say CenturyLink is really the only direct competitor of consequence for any of them. They are the only ones that seem to have a presence in most of the same markets. Each of the other players seem to have settled down in the respective territories purposefully avoiding one another.

Interactive HTML5 Coverage Maps:
Comcast Coverage Map
Time Warner Cable Coverage Map
Buzzfeed has further analysis of the above maps

Interactive HTML5 Coverage Maps:
Comcast Coverage Map
Time Warner Cable Coverage Map
Buzzfeed has further analysis of the above maps

According to the FCC it's 1 wired provider (the co-op we're talking about) and five cellular providers.

Hong Kong
SIZE: 426 sq miles
POPULATION: 7 million
DENSITY: 16.5K / sq mile

Los Angeles
SIZE: 503 sq miles
POPULATION: 4 million
DENSITY: 8K / sq mile

Los Angeles is half the population density of Hong Kong. Furthermore, the LA Metro area, which has a population of 12 million.

Let's just look at LA county, which has a population of 10 million, spread over 4,752 sq miles.. For a density of 2K/sq mile.

See the difference?

Southern Connecticut is a great example. No, it's not as dense as NY, but the entire southern half of Connecticut is fairly heavily populated. But you can't really point to a city as the demographic. It's one continous moderate density sprawl.

Connecticut
SIZE: 5,550 sq miles
POPULATION: 3.5 million
DENSITY: 739/sq mile

The result is that to wire most of Connecticut's population one must cover thousands of square miles. Note, Connecticut is 4th dense state. So let's compare the math. For Hong Kong to wire 3.5 million people, they need to cable 426 miles vs Connecticut, same population, must wire over 5,000 sq miles.

So to achieve the same connectivity, Connecticut must wire 10x the area of Hong Kong. Now, we're not talking about a rural/country area. Yes, some parts of the NW/NE Connecticut are rural. Even if we allowed Connecticut to only connect 90% of it's population, we'd still be required to wire around 3,500 square miled (7x Hong Kong).

Remember, this is the 4th most dense state in the United States. I would wager, that few countries spread as much cable to reach as many people over as great an area as the U.S.

Per the links, 82% of rural communities have access high speed internet (25mbps service), 98% can access basic broadband (6mbps).
http://www.broadbandmap.gov/blog/
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/blog/2013/ntia-explores-broadband-availability-new-report-series

Internet speed is pretty fucking fast here.

Compared to what?

Last I heard, Internet connection speeds are significantly behind the curve in large parts of the US. Still, better than Australia, but not quite "pretty fucking fast" territory! :)

He said he lives in NYC. I live in Memphis, TN, and despite the fact that we're the poorest metro in the country, all the businesses are leaving, and the infrastructure is dilapidated to the point of comedy, I can get 100 mbps from Comcast, if I want to pay for it.

I assume that someone from Australia is coming to the US to be in a city, so if that's the case, the speed really isn't that bad.

Here is the source of the 98.2% figure, Obama's very own boondoggle:

http://www.broadbandmap.gov/summarize/nationwide

The feds (US) created the map you want as part of the Federal Stimulus program (NTIA BTOP http://www2.ntia.doc.gov/about)

I am sure they did not get it all, because the carriers did not like to give up this information. They feel that knowledge of dark fiber would be helpful to their competitors but the feds made it a condition for the grants.

They put some of that information on line, although not in the way you want, as the National Broadband Map. I believe they are interested in public input to this map (where do the hills block the wireless signals, how far out does the DSL stop working)
http://www.broadbandmap.gov/technology

I think you will find that almost all fiber in public right of way is paid. At least around here, you cannot plow in some fiber along side a state road with paying the DOT and you cannot put fiber into city conduit without paying the city. Now everyone can have their own opinion about what is a fair price for access, but I am sure that the carriers feel that they are paying their fair share for use of public right of way. Still the price to get the permissions lot by lot would have been much much more than what they are paying the local governments (and power companies?).

What can I do if I think that the information about my address is incorrect?
If you see information that you believe is incorrect, please let us know. You can let us know if you believe the provider is not available at that location. Please remember that the search results show information about the census block or road segment. Generally, if broadband is available within part of a census block or road segment, it is available across all of that area, but not always.

What can I do if I think that the information about my address is incorrect?
If you see information that you believe is incorrect, please let us know. You can let us know if you believe the provider is not available at that location. Please remember that the search results show information about the census block or road segment. Generally, if broadband is available within part of a census block or road segment, it is available across all of that area, but not always.

I just cannot believe this, unless they did a survey which only those with wireless 3G connections.

They did. Open the map, turn off asymmetric and symmetric DSL, and turn on terrestrial mobile wireless.

I used the map to check broadband availability for 2 addresses I know of. http://www.broadbandmap.gov/ shows 3 wired ISPs at these addresses, Comcast, Verizon and One Communications.

I checked the web sites of all 3 companies. Verizon does not offer service at either address and One Communications offers only business accounts.

There is a place on http://www.broadbandmap.gov/ to confirm whether or not a listed ISP actually serves the specified address. I hope that means someone will double check to correct the errors.

Glad to see our government spent $200 million of our tax dollars on a database filled with incorrect data.

I used the map to check broadband availability for 2 addresses I know of. http://www.broadbandmap.gov/ shows 3 wired ISPs at these addresses, Comcast, Verizon and One Communications.

I checked the web sites of all 3 companies. Verizon does not offer service at either address and One Communications offers only business accounts.

There is a place on http://www.broadbandmap.gov/ to confirm whether or not a listed ISP actually serves the specified address. I hope that means someone will double check to correct the errors.

Glad to see our government spent $200 million of our tax dollars on a database filled with incorrect data.

"Are you being served?" turns out to be a funny question to ask when www.broadbandmap.gov is incapable of doing so.