FCC Broadband Speed Map is Back Online

[DooKey]

The national broadband speed map is back after a 4 year hiatus. It's actually pretty decent even though the data does need some tweaks and it would be nice if it included prices as well. I put my address into the map and found out about a few providers I didn't know about, however, it missed a few including my current fiber provider. Check it out here.

So while the FCC should be applauded for getting the broadband map back up and running – and for doing a good job of making a vast database of information easy to search and makes sense of – the truth is that we are looking at an idealized version of reality as painted by ISPs themselves.

 

[djoye]

Seems about right, these are my options based on my address:
Comcast Corporation Cable 987 35
------------------BARELY VIABLE OPTIONS BELOW THIS LINE-----------
AT&T Inc. ADSL 75 8
------------------NON-VIABLE OPTIONS BELOW THIS LINE----------------
Athena Broadband, G.P. Fixed Wireless 25 3
dishNET Holding, LLC Satellite 15 2
ViaSat, Inc. Satellite 12 3
VSAT Systems, LLC Satellite 2 1.3

Wireless and dish networks are not options when doing around 500GB/mo. Also, AT&T tells me that I can barely get 18 Mbps at my location..

 

[bman212121]

I'd say it's not terrible with what I've looked at. If you throw down the 25 / 3 coverage it clearly shows huge swaths of areas around me with 0 providers. The issue I have though is if you did turn it down to 10 / 1, it will show 2+ in a lot of areas. The problem is those are satellite or WISPs. It's not really the maps fault as the advertised speeds are in fact above 10/1, but anyone who I've heard of using those services doesn't achieve anywhere near 10/1 on them. If there was a bit more teeth in falsely advertising peak speeds instead of average speeds, I think the map would look a lot different. There are still the issues where a providers coverage isn't narrowed down enough to truly show door to door, but I don't think it would be easy to ever truly get that granular. If anything it just needs to go back to the required to service anyone in an area like power and phone already has to, then it wouldn't matter because if you're in that coverage chunk, you will have access.


But this map really sums it up well:

The largest provider in existence for broadband is only covering like 10% of the country. If Charter's coverage is another 10%, then at best 25% of the country truly has a broadband option.


Actually here's a map with Charter and Comcast on it.

That's about all you need to know for actual broadband coverage. I'm not going to toss AT&T, Verizon, or Frontier on there because fiber is still the minority of their customer base.

 

[AaronGant]

Well, it shows my options correctly. AT&T at 6mbps and then some satellite services. I've got the Viasat service now, and well, even though it's advertised at speed tiers up to 30, they are not playing around with those "UP TO" numbers. If it's 4am you'll get that no problem, but a few weeks ago in the evening I was only getting 0.6mbps, called in, they said it was congestion on the satellite. Sure enough it slowly crept up as the night got later and usage dropped. So, its "broadband speeds", sometimes, if you can consider anything with 600+ latency fast.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

I punched in my address. It listed three satellite providers I had never heard of (and have no interest in) as well as Verizon FiOS, Comcast and Verizon ADSL.

I can't speak to Comcast and Verizon's ADSL at my location, but they got the the FiOS max speed wrong. It's listed as 150/150, but I have 940/880 (marketed as gigabit)

 

[Deleted member 133315]

I just heard the news that my city is the first in scotland and second in the uk to fibre up the entire city and give everyome a minimum of 1gig up and down internet.

I cannot wait to start downloading linux distros enmasse from usenet.

 

[WhoMe]

Be great if I actually lived in town, could get fiber (guess I could rent one of the vacant business bulings ). But I'm five miles out and so it's inaccurate...ADSL? Nope too far away. Satellite, well yeah, but I quit the TV sat years ago due to crappy equipment and high prices and the ISP offerings are capped and expensive. There is a local wireless but they have a very high installation cost (for giving me an antenna since there is a SCADA/internet access pole across the street), but they won't guarantee speeds fast enough to stream (though they are uncapped). Oh well, maybe when T-Mobile hits the area it will force some competition. Wish I could get the 50down 10up fiber (I think that's the base plan)...well I could if I'd pay the installation cost for running 3 miles of fiber (the line ends at the golf course on my road)...I think they said $20/ft hey what a bargain (they did say if all property owners contribute $1000 they could do it...very few have that kind of money and most are vacant lots anyway).

 

[WhoMe]

I just heard the news that my city is the first in scotland and second in the uk to fibre up the entire city and give everyome a minimum of 1gig up and down internet.

I cannot wait to start downloading linux distros enmasse from usenet.

Beter hope the Loch Ness Monster doesn't decide it likes a bit of fiber in its diet.

 

[wizzi01]

Here are my options lol, and I am in Detroit.

 

[reFre5h]

It looks like it's only showing MAX down speeds through providers, not the avg. or base speeds they offer. Charter in my area is 100/5, but it shows 300/5. Which is roughly double the cost with no upload increase...

 

[Exavior]

Be great if I actually lived in town, could get fiber (guess I could rent one of the vacant business bulings ). But I'm five miles out and so it's inaccurate...ADSL? Nope too far away. Satellite, well yeah, but I quit the TV sat years ago due to crappy equipment and high prices and the ISP offerings are capped and expensive. There is a local wireless but they have a very high installation cost (for giving me an antenna since there is a SCADA/internet access pole across the street), but they won't guarantee speeds fast enough to stream (though they are uncapped). Oh well, maybe when T-Mobile hits the area it will force some competition. Wish I could get the 50down 10up fiber (I think that's the base plan)...well I could if I'd pay the installation cost for running 3 miles of fiber (the line ends at the golf course on my road)...I think they said $20/ft hey what a bargain (they did say if all property owners contribute $1000 they could do it...very few have that kind of money and most are vacant lots anyway).

should only cost them about $9-10/ft. Unless your area just is a real bitch to wire up.

Here are my options lol, and I am in Detroit.

View attachment 55282

Rocket Fiber is in parts of Detroit. Take it you aren't in one of those parts.

It looks like it's only showing MAX down speeds through providers, not the avg. or base speeds they offer. Charter in my area is 100/5, but it shows 300/5. Which is roughly double the cost with no upload increase...

The report that companies have to fill out only wants to know the fastest you can sell and what the fastest is that you have sold. doesn't have you report the averages.

 

[rive22]

It looks like it's only showing MAX down speeds through providers, not the avg. or base speeds they offer. Charter in my area is 100/5, but it shows 300/5. Which is roughly double the cost with no upload increase...

Charter needs to get their shit together. 5Mbits upload is wack when even mobile phone services are faster. That would have been fantastic 12~ years ago.

 

[wizzi01]

should only cost them about $9-10/ft. Unless your area just is a real bitch to wire up.



Rocket Fiber is in parts of Detroit. Take it you aren't in one of those parts.



The report that companies have to fill out only wants to know the fastest you can sell and what the fastest is that you have sold. doesn't have you report the averages.

Rocket is only Downtown and maybe Midtown
Right now.

 

[Deleted member 88301]

Maybe I'm just venting here, but I pay a ridiculous amount of money to Mediacom for 200/20, TiVo/cable, and VoIP.

I've recently tried to negotiate a better deal through them. I wanted to drop the phone, as I just want to use my Moto E4 for everything. I wanted to totally kill TiVo/cable, as I just wanted the streaming that I had; Am Prime, and NF. And I was thinking about Sling.

I can't afford this shit. So, what did Mediacom offer me?

Well, I'll save about $60 a month. But I have to keep the VoIP phone, $10 more a month if I cancel it. They have gutted the cable channels that I used to get, yet I'm forced to keep the TiVo.

Nothing was possible with the Mediacom CSRs, or their supervisors.



But I get to keep my internet speeds.

And I'm forced to keep the phone, TiVo/cable.

Yay for me.


The internet was all I wanted.

 

[Exavior]

Rocket is only Downtown and maybe Midtown
Right now.

ah, just knew they were there somewhere. Had talked to some of their guys at a equipment user group as we both use the same equipment to serve customers.

 

[Derangel]

This map is all kinds of fucked for where I live. Claims CenturyLink only offers 10Mb up when in reality they offer 60+. Another service, LTD, they claim offers 244Mb when that option does not even exist on their website, for any location and the highest they offer is 10Mb.

 

[WhoMe]

should only cost them about $9-10/ft. Unless your area just is a real bitch to wire up.

That would still be $150,000 to serve maybe 100-150 properties (most without houses). But it probably does cost more, it's a rural area, fuel is typically $1 more/gal than anywhere else and it's about an 800' rise in the last 3 miles and twisting mountain roads and a lot of rocks just under the surface. And the local water company doesn't know where the pipes are, when an electrical line was extended across the street from me and down a 100' they twice hit the water main as it was thought the water main was on the other side of the road (it was funny--too more traffic up here in an hour than I usually see in a couple of months as everyone down below was wondering why their driveways were washing away on a hot clear July day ). The area across the canyon me from just got electrified 10 years ago...we're a little behind the times .

 

[Navilor]

They cannot seem to differentiate different services making the map virtually useless for me.

They claim that Comcast provides ADSL in my area. Comcast is a cable company. I have never heard that they provide ADSL. I have found nothing on their website stating that they provide that feature.

They claim that CenturyLink provides fiber to my neighborhood. That is incorrect. CenturyLink does provide fiber as a service but my area, when looking on CenturyLink's own website, does not have fiber where I live.

 

[sfsuphysics]

Meh, Comcast of up to 200, WaveDivision (I'm guessing leasing Comcast's lines?) at 250, AT&T at 6, and Sonic at 12 (which is their bonded service), it claims Sonic at 40 & 80, but their availability tool does not show that is available at all. So yeah Comcast it is, although I might want to look into that wave thing, but I think I tried that once and they just flat out told me it wasn't available here even though their online tool said it was. Wonder if it was because I didn't even have cable hookup at the time.

 

[UrielDagda]

It's saying Verizon has gigabit service where I live, when I just talked to them a few months ago and they said they didn't, nor were they planning to have that service here.. They claimed the highest was 1.5mbps ASDL or some crap.

 

[Exavior]

That would still be $150,000 to serve maybe 100-150 properties (most without houses). But it probably does cost more, it's a rural area, fuel is typically $1 more/gal than anywhere else and it's about an 800' rise in the last 3 miles and twisting mountain roads and a lot of rocks just under the surface. And the local water company doesn't know where the pipes are, when an electrical line was extended across the street from me and down a 100' they twice hit the water main as it was thought the water main was on the other side of the road (it was funny--too more traffic up here in an hour than I usually see in a couple of months as everyone down below was wondering why their driveways were washing away on a hot clear July day ). The area across the canyon me from just got electrified 10 years ago...we're a little behind the times .

yeah, which is about right for the cost. Fiber (or copper) cost about $40,000 - $60,000 a mile in my area on average depending on in ground or on poles. The last subdivision we did was about 80 houses, cost us about $150,000 all said and done to get out to them and go past every house (if they wanted us or not which is the same as empty or full lots). This is in an area that is all flat land and dirt in the Midwest. The fact that you said canyon, makes me think that you aren't on flat dirt. so don't know if they can go on poles in your area or are trying to drill through rock. Which drilling in rock is more costly than boring in dirt. Sadly the cost isn't the cable itself, Cost per foot of a 12 fiber vs 288 fiber is small (less than $1 / foot difference in cost i think), the cost is the labor to get it put in. Which is the cost of man hours, gas, insurance and all that.

 

[mdburkey]

It would be an interesting map...if it was even close to correct. Two of the providers they list for my address do NOT service the area. Additionally, the speeds they list for the ones that do are nowhere near correct.

 

[WhoMe]

yeah, which is about right for the cost. Fiber (or copper) cost about $40,000 - $60,000 a mile in my area on average depending on in ground or on poles. The last subdivision we did was about 80 houses, cost us about $150,000 all said and done to get out to them and go past every house (if they wanted us or not which is the same as empty or full lots). This is in an area that is all flat land and dirt in the Midwest. The fact that you said canyon, makes me think that you aren't on flat dirt. so don't know if they can go on poles in your area or are trying to drill through rock. Which drilling in rock is more costly than boring in dirt. Sadly the cost isn't the cable itself, Cost per foot of a 12 fiber vs 288 fiber is small (less than $1 / foot difference in cost i think), the cost is the labor to get it put in. Which is the cost of man hours, gas, insurance and all that.

Yeah the one they ran up the first two miles was put underground. In theory it could go on poles, but they may have been laying extra power lines at that time (they put in some boxes) so it was cheaper underground with the shared cost and they had the right of way already (the power company and the ISP doing the fiber are part of the same rural utility corp.). In theory only the last 100' would need to go underground at my house...but when people want to run power lines now, they are requiring them to go underground. A lot of the houses that would tie in are on 20 acre parcels and way off the road for added cost, so I think there is small hope of it happening...unless some billionaire buys a resort house and just pays for it .
I really wish using the electrical lines had worked, but there were too many problems, seems these old lines were never meant to handle data and electricity at the same time--they just didn't think of that in the 60's. Maybe someone will get a bunch of cheap satellites launched, but I've been hearing that promise for a long time.