Welcome to BroadbandCensus.com

By Drew Clark, Editor, BroadbandCensus.com

WASHINGTON, January 21, 2010 - Today's edition of The New York Times includes a story about internet speed tests, including BroadbandCensus.com, and the various features that each of the major providers takes in offering speed tests. The piece, "How Fast is Your Web Connection?" by Peter Wayner, includes ISPGeeks.com, Toast.net, VisualWare, Pingtest.net, and DSLReports.com, along with BroadbandCensus.com. The article discusses what BroadbandCensus.com aims to achieve in allowing users to "crowdsource" and share data about their internet connections:

Some users are also setting up Web sites to share test results so others can see the general performance of an Internet service provider. DSLReports.com and BroadbandCensus.com, for instance, both offer tests and collect their results to produce reports to help consumers decide whether problems are sporadic or part of a larger pattern.

Among the speed tests mentioned in the article, BroadbandCensus.com is the only one that uses the open source Network Diagnostic Tool of Internet2. If you'd like to participate in the Broadband Census, and take the BroadbandCensus.com speed test, click...

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By Drew Clark, Executive Director, BroadbandCensus.com

WASHINGTON, December 14, 2009 - Broadband Census Data announced the availability of highly granular Census block mapping services to state recipients of broadband mapping grants. BroadbandCensus.com provides the information necessary for states to meet grant obligations under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It does this by identifying:

• carriers;
• internet technologies;
• advertised speeds;
• prices; and
• the presence or absence of broadband within each Census block.

Using BroadbandCensus.com, a state can fully map the broadband footprint of its carriers within 42 days, for a fraction of the budget allocated by the Recovery Act. And the cost is less than what a state might otherwise expect for a product of this caliber. BroadbandCensus.com builds its broadband maps by blending multiple data sets of publicly-available information. These sources include:

• Wireline footprints;
• Radio-frequency engineering maps;
• Publicly-available carrier data;
• Survey-grade research; and
• Crowdsourced data.

The data underlying BroadbandCensus.com is verifiable, publicly available, and granular to the Census block level. BroadbandCensus.com can also go beyond the Census block level and offer consumer broadband data at the rooftop level. This survey-grade information is no more than six months old. Unlike compiled consumer data built for direct marketing, the BroadbandCensus.com suite of services makes use of active household demographic data. Working in collaboration with Brian Webster Consulting, Broadband Census Data...

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WASHINGTON, December 7, 2009 - A new report using an innovative approach to broadband data finds that the percentage of households in the United States that have adopted high-speed internet services is 72.9 percent. The report was generated by comparing the Census blocks in which broadband is available with the number of subscribers that carriers report to the Federal Communications Commission. By linking the number of subscribers in a particular state (from FCC data) to a data-set of Census block-by-Census block tabulations of broadband availability, consultant Brian Webster believes that he is able to peg the nation-wide broadband adoption rate for homes passed at 72.9 percent. That number is about 10 percentage points higher than what other studies have found. That's not surprising - precisely because he is attempting to count adoption of homes passed, and not of the population as a whole. “That’s a difference that could have a significant impact on the decisions made to deploy broadband in the remaining un-served markets,” says Webster. One other facet to the data used in the report: the FCC data used in the report also includes mobile broadband counts, in addition to wireline broadband counts. Because a home could have two or more broadband...

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By Drew Clark, Editor, BroadbandCensus.com

WASHINGTON, November 30, 2009 - The news that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration aims to seek access to the Form 477 database is positive news -- providing that the public obtains access to the database, too. Even before the founding of BroadbandCensus.com more than two years ago, the individuals associated with the data side of BroadbandCensus.com have been urging the public disclosure of basic broadband data. We call this the Broadband SPARC: for Speeds, Prices, Availability, Reliability and Competition. In comments in July 2008, BroadbandCensus.com urged greater disclosure of this data. We repeated these comments, adding a new twist - that a National Broadband Plan must be accompanied by a National Broadband Mashup - in June 2009. As readers of BroadbandBreakfast.com are aware, Broadband Census LLC has recently split our operations between our news and events, which we publish on BroadbandBreakfast.com, and our data operations, which continues on BroadbandCensus.com. BroadbandBreakfast.com continues our tradition of reliable news reporting, as BroadbandCensus.com continues to urge disclosure and - through our mapping from publicly-available sources - create the best possible database of broadband speeds, prices, availability, reliability and competition. The news of the NTIA's interest in the Form 477...

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By Drew Clark, Editor, BroadbandCensus.com

WASHINGTON, November 19, 2009 - Today, Broadband Census News launches BroadbandBreakfast.com, a new daily web site with definitive and independent news on broadband stimulus funding, wireless internet, and the national broadband plan. This new domain, BroadbandBreakfast.com, will be used for the journalistic operations of Broadband Census News LLC -- our company's news subsidiary -- and will cover broadband technology and internet policy. Our reporters are passionate about broadband, and we aim to maintain our focus on core issues of broadband technology and internet policy. Meanwhile, the web site BroadbandCensus.com has been relaunched for the purposes of Broadband Census Data LLC: ensuring that the public has free and transparent access to basic and granular broadband information about broadband Speeds, Prices, Availability, Reliability and Competition.

Going Forward with Broadband News AND Data

In previous entries in this series of five blog posts, I’ve highlighted the history of BroadbandCensus.com. We've been leading the charge for public and transparent broadband data for more than three years. In that time, much has changed about the opportunity that we face, and our country faces, in bringing better broadband data to consumers, and to policy-makers. I’ve highlighted the history of BroadbandCensus.com's efforts...

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By Drew Clark, Editor, BroadbandCensus.com

WASHINGTON, October 30, 2009 – Over the summer, BroadbandCensus.com split our operations between the news and events that we host, and the Creative Commons database with the local broadband SPARC: the Speeds, Prices, Availability, Reliability and Competition in the local broadband marketplace. As we’ve now entered the fourth year of this saga in which BroadbandCensus.com has been leading the charge for public and transparent broadband data, much has changed about the opportunity that we face, and our country faces, in bringing better broadband data to consumers, and to policy-makers. In previous versions of this series of blog posts taking stock, I’ve highlighted our efforts to start the ball rolling on crowdsourcing broadband data, and on uniting scholars and state officials through the “Broadband Census for America” conference that we hosted  on the eve of the passage of the Broadband Data Improvement Act. Today, I’d like to speak about some of the major changes that 2009 has brought to BroadbandCensus.com – particularly as both our news and our data side have helped to set the table for the national broadband plan currently under development. In the final series of these blog posts, next week,...

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By Drew Clark, Editor, BroadbandCensus.com

WASHINGTON, October 12, 2009 - Carl Weinschenck, writing in IT Business Edge, speaks about "Broadband Mapping: Treasure for a New Age." Carl discusses the rash of interest in broadband data and mapping since the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, in February 2009, and highlights the work of several data companies. Among the companies highlighted are Ridgeview Telecom, Connected Nation, and BroadbandCensus.com. Here's an excerpt of what he writes:

Critics are not shy about saying that something untoward is going on. Vince Jordan, the president and CEO of broadband engineering, construction and management firm RidgeviewTel, says that Connected Nation isn’t doing a thorough job. “These guys basically are taking whatever the telco and cable guys feed them and regurgitate it, and say that’s where the coverage is,” he says.

Data that is given by carriers to the broadband mapping companies is protected under non-disclosure agreements. Thus, actual cases in which speeds are overstated are impossible to identify. But appearances are vital. Drew Clark, the editor and executive director of BroadbandCensus, a news and commercial data services organization, says he believes that the telecommunications carriers shouldn’t...

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By Drew Clark, Editor, BroadbandCensus.com

WASHINGTON – September 29, 2009 – From the beginning, BroadbandCensus.com has aimed at providing academics, consumers, government officials and industry with the high-quality data needed about the state of broadband throughout the country. We believe in public and transparent broadband data. Without public and transparent broadband data, each of these constituents are lacking in what they need. It is heartening that the highest levels of the Obama administration see and espouse the virtues of transparency and of a data-driven approach to broadband policy. Again today, it came clear that the FCC now seeks to do that which BroadbandCensus.com has been doing since February 2008 – comparing actual speeds with advertised speeds – on an even more finely grained basis. Now comes the hard part: translating the rhetoric and positive feelings about public and open broadband data into concrete decisions that will drive better-quality broadband data. Last week I began this five-part series during One Web Week. I focused on the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to obtain broadband data in 2006, and on the founding of BroadbandCensus.com in the fall of 2007. Much has happened on broadband data in the past week: FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski announced a new...

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