Slashdot Mirror
Feds Help You Find Your Fastest Internet Service
jfruhlinger writes "Slashdot previously covered the National Broadband Map, designed by the US Federal government to illustrate where the 'digital divide' between those with access to high-speed Internet and those who go without. But, as blogger Ryan Faas points out, you can use it for a much more individualistic purpose: to find your fastest local wired or wireless ISP. Just plug in your name and address and you'll soon see what your options are."
Obligatory, not obligatority. Maybe if obligatory and authority had a child...
... and that was supposed to be a reply to "New Internal Cavity X-ray Technology for Airports", not "Feds Help You Find Your Fastest Internet Service". /sigh
Checked my location, advertised speed and reality are not the same.
Thanks but try again.
The National Broadband Map gives erroneous results. For example, it states that Verizon has broadband service for my address, but it doesn't.
Nice to see them using OpenStreetMap!
Why is this exactly in Your Rights Online? Are /.ers so afraid of entering their ZIP code anywhere?
This post contains no rudeness or derision of any kind. All arguments are friendly. Terms and exclusions may apply.
That site says comcast offers 1 gbps service to my house.
Agree. According to this, I can get FIOS. No dice. They did get the cable Co right, though.
The summary is wrong, but so is the site. It didn't ask for my name, the map it draws for my ZIP code is wrong, it doesn't report the proper speed for one of the providers, and actually fails to list my ISP altogether, which has been around before 6/30/2010. Pretty much what I expected.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Feds Help You Find Your Fastest Advertised Internet Service
db
In my area, it shows Verizon as providing 50mbps to 100mbps DSL. Which is false. So yes, the data could use some work.
Sadly this thing isn't even worth joking about, it is a 200 million dollar lie that is so full of shit its eyes are brown. Plugged in my mom's address (I've been fighting for a decade to get something better than dialup for her) and it said I had FOUR count them four choices, two of which don't even operate in this area, one which told us point blank if you are even a single block out of the city limits to piss off, and the fourth refuses to run a single inch unless you give them 300% of the costs of the line upfront to ensure their incredible ass raping profits. Oh and they also have a WISP listed that we actually tried and is lucky if it works four hours a night and have worse TOS than Hughesnet.
So yeah, if you are using this thing for anything more than a laugh you are just wasting your time the way the government wasted your money on this fairy tale. So far I've plugged in a dozen addresses and not a single one was close to reality and both the speeds and carriers available were complete bullshit.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Using my address, I see 6 ISPs offering >3Mbps service. All of that is completely wrong.
1) Verizon: 50 - 100Mbps.
When I tried to get Verizon DSL, they told me it wasn't supported in my area. The reality is it is a lower middle class area and many people on my street can't afford internet access. So they probably could provide it, but don't bother.
2) Cavalier Telephone: 50 - 100Mbps
Ironically, they use Verizon's lines. Their service was so bad it was getting to be less than the 384Mbps they claimed it was. I canceled a few years ago.
3) Clearwire: 10 - 25Mbps
This is a wireless provider, and I don't even think it can theoretically reach those kinds of speeds. I stopped by one of their booths at the mall and they can actually tell you the signal-to-noise ratio for a given address and they told me that service probably wouldn't work here. That is believable, since I don't get cell service at my house either.
4) Comcast: 50 - 100Mbps
I signed-up for Comcast business class internet and they called me and apologized and said their lines couldn't handle anything more than their low-end 3Mbps service. But it sure beat Cavalier Telephone so I went with it. But even at their "turbo-boost" they still only claim 12, so what the heck is with 50 - 100?
5, 6) T-mobile claiming 6 - 10 Mbps (wirelessly? I don't think so...) and Covad claiming 3 - 6 Mbps.
Perhaps I should switch to Covad for being the only one to make an honest claim.
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.
Do the great unwashed masses really need to eck out that last 500KB/sec from their ISP? Does it really matter that "naughty farm animals" loads in 1/8 of a second instead of 1/4 of a second?
I know, Netflix, Hulu and more recently Amazon have finally made movies on demand practical, but past about 10 Mb/sec does speed really matter?
I recently called my ISP and asked to be reduced to the slowest speed they offer -- 15 Mb/sec -- to save money and because even as a geek doing geeky things, I still wasn't using a sizable fraction of the bandwidth (25 Mb/sec) I had before. And guess what -- the Roku box, and Netflix plugin for Media Center, continued to function just fine.
This doesn't stop the local competitor (who will remain nameless but starts with a C) from coming to my door twice a month with promises of blazing speed if I'd only switch to them. I try to explain that I really don't need that kind of speed, and they look at me like I had said I really don't breathe very much.
I suspect a lot of this "get the screamingist bandwidth you can afford!" is just marketing to consumers that don't understand what bandwidth buys you. (And doesn't buy you.)
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
To say it gives bad results is an understatement. I just plugged in my zipcode. The map doesn't even correctly show the area of that zip code. So that is epic fail number one. Then it lists one company AT&T that does offer service here and one I have never heard of that might actually offer service. Then it omits the local cable company that has been doing the Internet for a decade under the various names cable companies shift among and has been operating under for at least three or four years. Then they also omit Centenial Wireless who I know offers a wireless net option locally. Useless, like just about everything the Feral Government tries to do these days.
Democrat delenda est
I apparently already have the fastest internet service I can get... RR turbo at 15/1. I only signed up for it because it was advertised as 15/2 right on the site where I upgraded my service. After about 2 weeks of trying to explain to various people in the company that the service is advertised as 15/2 so I expect 2 mbit uploads, the best they could do was credit my account for free turbo for 6 months and absolutely could not offer me the service advertised. Sounds like bait and switch to me. Even made a youtube video about it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIatnz01XaY
To add insult to injury, what I really wanted was RR extreme (Their 30/5 docsis 3 service) but even though its been on and off the ordering page on their web site, every time I try to order it my order gets cancelled because its not yet available right at my house. Never mind that Comcast, for as crappy as they are for other reasons, have like 95% of their nation wide service area covered with docsis 3 already and have for like 2 years.
If they'd get off their asses and actually make docsis 3 work, I wouldn't have had to deal with the bait-and-switch 2mbit/1mbit RR turbo shennigans.
Somebody should just sue them over this shit. Even if its not illegal to drag your feet on upgrading your customer's service, it IS illegal to offer a level of service at a certain price, and then refuse to honor the offer later. Credit or not.