FCC Broadband Map
Lots of comments are misunderstanding the point of the map and think it's supposed to be perfectly accurate.
No, that's not at all the point. The point is to allow individuals and businesses to challenge telecom self-attestations of coverage that are likely suspect. So if e.g SpaceX says you're currently served by Starlink but it turns out Starlink is refusing you on their site until the middle of next year, you can challenge the accuracy of Starlink's coverage map.
Starlink used as an example. You can challenge anything, but so far I've had to challenge Starlink at every address I'm responsible for.
Over time the map should be reliable, but for now, look for the Location Challenge and Availability Challenge links to see your options if you think a provider is misrepresenting coverage.
It's hard for me to take this data seriously when I enter an address that I know to be problematic for cellular coverage and receive "100% coverage" on the mobile broadband tab, and listed with carriers I know to have zero outdoor coverage at the location.
In Wisconsin we have this map that I used heavily when searching for new apartments and house shopping. It has the ability to filter by wireline vs wireless and satellite, which is nice.
This is so much bullshit.
Satellite coverage should not be counted, because that requires a clear view of the sky. My property and most others in this area are covered in forest, so those options are right out.
My only options are terrestrial, where the highest listed speed is 10Mbps. It is not fair for my local ISP to compete against entities that cannot possibly serve the same address.
The clustering here is really misleading at the higher zoom levels. Shows 100% coverage when you hover on a large area, then you zoom in and find 50% of that same area has zero coverage.
Why, when I lookup my address, do I not see my regional cable internet provider? Yet, when I search that provider, their service availability is shown as 100% in the hexagon covering our home.
While I think I understand that the intention of this map is to document Telecom-asserted coverage such that users can contest inaccuracies, a beneficial flip-side (for me) is to ensure that my regional ISP is accurately represented.
I'll take a non-Comcast/Verizon/National ISP over a National any day of the week. I want their coverage to be accurately documented.
This is great but also not 100% accurate. My address shows nothing but my neighbor's address shows all the various other options in the area. My area also got fiber ~ 2 months ago and it's not shown on this map at all.
But still could have used something like this each time I moved and had to figure out what providers were in a particular location.
Equivalent map for Canada: https://www.ic.gc.ca/app/sitt/bbmap/hm.html
National Broadband Internet Service Availability Map
The California Internet 1000/1000 struck me as an outlier. Seems to be coming from some company called Geolinks, which doesn't seem to actually be offering that. In fact, it's unclear they're actually offering anything at the moment, they just "plan to".
So I requested a quote from GeoLinks (bay area). They responded with a quote for business, to which I replied:
> Residential quote, please. [EOM]
They concluded:
> Thank you for contacting GeoLinks! We have received your inquiry regarding GeoLinks’ service in your area. Unfortunately, due to some data errors, the FCC’s Broadband Data Collection map does not accurately reflect GeoLinks’ service footprint. We are in the process of correcting the data provided to the FCC but it will take time for the map to be revised.
> We apologize for any confusion this may have caused and hope that you will consider GeoLinks in the future when service is available in your area.
Nice. Nowhere did I mention FCC; they must've felt the barrage of HN this AM it seems.
Used to use some of this data for analyzing cellular service coverage. The info on cellular data (e.g., LTE) availability is provided by the cell providers and is usually... very optimistic.
I'd assume the terrestrial fiber/cable/DSL data is more accurate, though?
> 25/3 Mbps or greater
"Broadband" from 2002
Find your address, see what it says.
If you see something that was NOT available, contact the provider and check if it is now available. If not, click "Challenge".
Here a strange one...
My address in Lafayette, IN is currently being served by a fiber provider, MetroNet (https://www.metronet.com/) but they are not listed as a provider (neither Residential nor Business)
I wonder if fiber service is not counted as "broadband"...though I am getting 100Mbps (bidirectional)
Seems to be too optimistic. My location has listed Frontier fiber but in reality they just put conduits underground few weeks ago and now pulling the fiber through the streets.
https://www.broadbandmap.ca.gov/ is much more attached to reality in Aalifornia
This is the map all the Starlink customers have issue with. There's tremendous mistakes throughout it and areas marked as having broadband often don't.
Also the map is screwed up, as there is only "0%" and "100%" despite the scale having multiple values, they're never used.
It is incomplete and inaccurate. i.e. current service I have is not reported in the map, service drops we no longer use but still exist in the demarc are not reported. Perhaps one day it will be useful, but in the 6 locations I could use it for it was inadequate.
What's going on in Bismarck, ND. If you set the map to wired 1000+ there's a huge radius of coverage and nothing down town. Light googling took me to BEK, a fiber coop in the area, but I can't reason with why there's no coverage in the city.
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Seems accurate for my area in West Denver
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My firm is working to improve the social determinants of health/health equity through better data and analytics. Broadband access risk is of central interest.
We’ve incorporated this specific FCC data into our Equity Data Geo Explorer, which gives a visual of broadband risk (among others) down to the neighborhood level. [1]
I welcome a conversation with anyone else who is working in this space. Email in bio.