National Broadband Map Shows Digital Divide

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.'"

Comments

$200 million?

[fish waffle]

The map, costing about $200 million

Really? I'd of done it for a paltry $150 million.

Re:$200 million?

[causality]

Aside from the people who disbelieve in government entirely, I don't feel there is, as in my experience most of the anti-Census type rhetoric is based on principles of limitation and hamstringing the government out of spite, not because it's genuinely not a good idea to know these things, or because it's somehow a gross intrusion on the citizenry.

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.

Re:$200 million?

[Anonymous Coward]

(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, you could argue that being able to learn that has caused a lot of problems, but it's not like you can close people's eyes, sometimes even their eyes can change the results. I found it amusing that I just saw an episode of Cold Case where a black man started passing for white after his officer thought he'd made a mistake on the form. But without the form, would it have mattered? No. So how do we know if we're discriminating? By not closing our eyes and pretending it helps. It doesn't.

Knowing your income is also beneficial to knowing the economic state of the country as well as complying with the laws passed after the 16th Amendment. Yeah, the 16th Amendment says they can do it without regard to any such census or enumeration, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't have some foundation on what to base it. It makes sense to me. That said, they didn't actually ask that on this year's Census, at least not my copy. All they asked was about home ownership. Which is still a valid question to know, what with what it says about the economy.

And really, your age? If they don't know your age, how can they know if you're old enough to vote or not? Voting age is at least something that SHOULD be known. That you're upset over it just makes me wonder. Besides knowing ages helps plan for the future, knowing how many people might say start driving, or might need schooling. You may argue that this information would be more useful to the local gov't, and I would concur, however I feel it'd be better asked in the Census rather than duplicating the work.

What other side? The only thing that's involved are the State Legislatures to assent to the amendment, which they've done 27 times already.

I wouldn't represent it that way. The first 10 were included as part of the Constitution, as such I would count this as a single bundle, not 27 different ones. I would make a similar argument for the Civil War amendments. That and you're leaving out the role of Congress in the Amendment process.

But yes, it has been done. Yet if it were tried today, I would expect to get people who would not make arguments based on logic or reason, but on the idea that somehow what was said in the original Constitution was perfect, could not be changed, and had to be followed till the end of time.

This is not an R versus D thing.

Well, perhaps, but that's not the only division in this country. I don't even consider the RvD to be the definitive division. The division I'm talking about is a collection of people who seem to believe we're still living in the late 1700s, that we need to live by some sacred standard set in stone by the Founding Fathers, and who coincidentally enough, interpret what the Constitution says to be what they want to believe it says. EVERY TIME.

See the debate about the 14th Amendment for one clear example. There's also the whole business of nullification. Totally made up, with no explicit provision for it, but they keep pushing it as if it really did exist in that black ink.

I much prefer people who stick to real reasons, who appeal to the logic and reasons of today, instead

Re:$200 million?

[coaxial]

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.

It's a real shame all the Founder(tm) were dead when the 4th census asked occupation. 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, signed the Militia Act of 1792, which required "each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years" had to purchase gun (which was tax deductible).

Re:$200 million?

[hairyfeet]

It is also a 200 million dollar pile of BS. I put my mom's address in there and they have the area covered by up to 10Mbps which is complete and TOTAL horseshit. They have Verizon (doesn't service this area) AT&T (doesn't service anyone outside of town, even a single block) and Cox (which told her tough shit, they won't run the block and a half).

So surprise surprise, the government spent 200 million on yet another pile of useless data. They should have to check and see whether or not an area has coverage or if they are just BSing. Because I can tell you that while groups like AT&T will lie their asses off and say they cover a zip code in reality if you live a single inch out of town you are told to piss off. I've been trying to get something better than dialup for my mom for a decade and have just been given the finger over and over, this map is BS.

Re:$200 million?

[AK Marc]

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. The census could be "mark the number of free persons, mark the number of other persons" and be done with it. But not even the very first census restricted itself to such a terse application of the idea of a census.

At least George Washington also stated that the party system would harm the country, and the Republicans and Democrats work as hard as they can to prove him right.

/. News Networks

[Even on Slashdot FOE]

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.

Indiana

[wiredlogic]

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?

Re:Indiana

[Nadaka]

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"

Re:Indiana

[fermion]

When I look at this map, what I see is population distribution. For example, Indiana and Arizona has about the same population. In Arizona, about a quarter of the people are in the about 400 aquare miles of Pheonix. The rest are spread over the state in a density of less than 40 people per square mile. Compare this to indiana where only about 10% live in Indianapolis and the rest are spead with a density of about 150 people per square mile. In the case of Arizona the state will have to take huge sums of tax payer money to provide service to the state, while in Indianapolis more areas are able to pay a fair price for service without government regulations and waste. The same is true for Texas. There are simply not that many people that live south and east of Abilene. Sure we could pay huge taxes to pull fiber and provide broadband to the one farm located in the middle of a square mile of noting, but why would we?

Take a look at this image of the earth at nigh It shows the same trend as the bradband map.

Frankly when one goes east, the population density decreases, and we must assume the level of service to do so as well. I don't see broadband like I do land telephone. I hope over time we will see some cost saving, and decrease in taxes on communications, by encouraging individuals to cover more of the costs. For instance in some countries no physical lines are run to places with low population density. They are expected to use mobile phones. Furthermore, the coverage is not that good, and many people are required to buy home booster units if they want cell service. It is simply not fair to charge other customers high rates or taxes so that one person can use a phone. This type of thing can also deliver broadband to low density areas. New cell technology seems to able to cover 5 square miles, which in the case of Arizona would be 150 people, maybe enough to justify a station.

Canadian Broadband

[KingPin27]

For those of you interested in under served markets -- check out the Canadian set of broadband maps (current to 2010) Maps here

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.

Missing some data

[mitler]

I hope they aren't factoring missing data into their statistics. I'm in York County PA, and the default map showing DSL service is mysteriously blank for the entire county. I think they have some holes in their data, or it's just not displaying it all properly.

Nice job, Feds.

[MachineShedFred]

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.

Probably bunk

[MetricT]

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.

Re:No Chrome?

[Rob the Bold]

I don't get it on Chrome or Firefox. Methinks they need a faster broadband connection . . .

Re:I wonder..

[guruevi]

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).

Re:$200M? Should have spent more

[Firehed]

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.

Re:Really not that bad.....

[Seumas]

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 denser an area's population, the greater the broadband penetration (of course, you're still only left with ONE option, no matter how dense the population is in your area). If you're way out in the fucking middle of nowhere and you don't get broadband internet, you probably also may not get cable television. Or be connected to a city sewer line. Or have a robust library system. That's what you get when you live in the middle of nowhere and that's why people tend to congregate in bigger cities. You know, where you can get stuff.