I’m trying to keep all of the 2009 Stimulus information in one spot. I thought that this deserved its own mention however. Included in the bill is $350 million for mapping broadband service throughout the country.
Deep inside the stimulus bill that passed the Senate Tuesday is an allocation of up to $350 million for making a “nationwide inventory map of existing broadband service capability and availability in the United States.” This map, members of Congress say, will be helpful in making sure that the $7 billion in proposed grants to bring high speed Internet service to rural areas are handed out where they are most needed.
Doesn’t this seem like something we could all do voluntarily? My understanding is that the main information the map is to gather is 1) location, 2) broadband speed/availability and 3) cost. Couldn’t the geniuses at Google whip up some program in about fifteen seconds, where I can do a speed test and then enter my info into Google maps?
Or something like that?
Greg, I’m looking in your direction…
Looks like the UK has already done it, those progressive little bodgers.
Yeah, I agree, 350 million? Google probably already has just such a map.
I’d be curious who they have EARMARKED to do the study, who wrote that portion of the bill and if they both come from the same state.
Sorry, forgot the link.
http://www.itfacts.biz/images/uploads/point-topic-uk-broadband-penetration.gif
Dont know about you, but I was thinking more along the lines of a digital “highway” map. Showing where all of the high speed lines are, all of the fiber optic lines are with hubs and everything, connections to all of the wireless towers. Highways would be color coded similar to the map Mike is showing, but with colors showing relative amounts of traffic running through those lines. Combined with the map that Mike shows you could do some targeting. I could see mountainous areas that have high capacity lines running through, but dont necessarily have a lot of high-speed access due to lower populations and relatively high cost to support a smaller population and/or poor coverage of wireless in rough terrain.
I bet the chinese/russians/terrorists would help fund such a map too. 😉
Run Marty!! Its the Libyans!
Stay tuned gentleman 🙂
NZ has a real broadband map – most of the telcos contribute data to it, along with communities.