Welcome to BroadbandCensus.com

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, September 22, 2009 – Public and transparent broadband data has now been elevated to the level of a fundamental principle, at least in the Monday speech by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski. But it’s worth reflecting on the time – not so long ago – when the quest to collect this kind of broadband data was an unrealized vision at the losing end of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. On Monday, I recounted the history and aftermath of this FOIA request and lawsuit that the Center for Public Integrity filed again Kevin Martin’s FCC. In many ways, that defeat directly set the stage for the launch of BroadbandCensus.com in the fall of 2007. All this week, during One Web Week, I’m speaking about the history of BroadbandCensus.com from a personal perspective. In this series of blog posts, I’m going to speak about what we’ve been through, who we have worked with to advance the principles of public and transparent broadband data, and what we ultimately aim to achieve at BroadbandCensus.com.

• Part 1: The debate begins with the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in 2006.
• Part 2, on One Web Day: The founding...

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By Drew Clark, Editor and Executive Director, BroadbandCensus.com

WASHINGTON, July 19, 2009 - Over at O'Reilly's Radar, Carl Malamud discusses the need for a crowdsourced national communiations census, or a broadband census. He writes:

My last tour of duty in DC was Chief Technology Officer at the Center for American Progress. One of the fun things I got to do was figure out what everybody else did, including my fellow Senior Fellows, the folks that generated most of the policy work, many of whom are now occupying senior posts in the new administration.

One of the most fascinating was Mark Lloyd. An experienced Emmy-winning television producer, communications lawyer, and community activist, Mark is the author of a well-regarded book aboutcommunications and democracy and numerous columns. He's currently at the Leadership Conference for Civil Rights.

The project Mark Lloyd was working on was a National Broadband Map to show our true communications capabilities. And, he wanted to crowd-source the map from community groups, supplementing that with census and other data from several different places to create a big mash-up. This was in 2005, around the same time Adrian Holovaty was thinking about chicagocrime.org.

Here's my reply on the O'Reilly...

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By Andrew MacRae, Special Correspondent, BroadbandCensus.com

NEW SALEM, MASS., May 26, 2009 – Governor Deval Patrick (D) on Tuesday designated the Massachusetts Broadband Institute as the “eligible entity” for receiving broadband data funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Patrick spoke with Massachusetts Broadband Institute Director Sharon Gillett, and with Rep. John Olver, D-Mass., at an event at which the institute unveiled a new interactive survey, built as a Google Maps mashup. In addition to the institute, a non-profit entity, serving as the entity responsible for receiving broadband data funding from the federal government, the officials said that the institute would be responsible for aggregating Massachusett's applications to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to “ensure a balanced portfolio of the state’s needs reaches the NTIA.” In the interactive survey, Massachusetts residents and businesses are asked to provide information about the speed, price, availability of the broadband that they receive at their location. In addition, residents are invited to comment on their service. Since January 2008, BroadbandCensus.com has been collecting data about what it calls the Broadband SPARC: Speeds, Prices, Availability, Reliability and Competition. The data about the the local Broadband SPARC is freely available on BroadbandCensus.com under a Creative...

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News

By Drew Clark, Editor, BroadbandCensus.com

WASHINGTON, January 27, 2009 - Search giant Google is preparing to enter the market for free broadband speed tests, through a collaboration with the university research consortium PlanetLab, and the New America Foundation. Google is set to announce the collaboration on Wednesday, at an event at the New America Foundation in Washington, and keynoted by Vint Cerf, vice president and chief internet evangelist at Google. Google follows BroadbandCensus.com, which launched in January 2008, in providing a free internet speed tests to consumers. BroadbandCensus.com’s speed test allows internet uses to test actual speeds and compare them to the speeds that are promised by their internet providers. Google and the other participants in the research consortium will be using the same speed test – the Network Diagnostic Tool of Internet2 – that was deployed by BroadbandCensus.com beginning in February 2008. As with BroadbandCensus.com, Google apparently seeks to make the data publicly available, as a means of providing transparency into the operations of internet providers. “Transparency has always been an essential component of the Internet's success,” reads the press release announcing Wednesday’s event. “To remedy today's information gap, researchers need resources to develop new analytical tools.” “At this event, speakers will discuss the importance of advancing...

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Blog Entries

By Drew Clark, Editor, BroadbandCensus.com

A recent post to the Open Infrastructure Alliance mailing list: WASHINGTON, July 28 - I am heartened to see the very active discussion that is now taking place around the issue of “public-private partnerships.” And David Reed’s comments raise the issue of the lack of transparency, which is of particular concern, particularly when the public-private partnership aims to speak for the “public.” I’ve recently started up BroadbandCensus.com, a web service devoted to providing, for free, public information about not only broadband availability — but also about broadband competition, broadband speeds, and broadband prices. You can read more about us at http://broadbandcensus.com/home/aboutus BroadbandCensus.com is produced by Broadband Census LLC, a private company that I set up in order to run the web site, and to make it available to the public under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License. Our license ensures that all public entities, academic institutions, and others, may make non-commercial use of the contents of our web site — for free — so long as they provide attribution. We receive no funding from broadband providers, but are supported by contributions from the Benton Foundation, and under a contract with the Pew Internet & American Life Project. On...

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Experience with NDT Featured in Presentation at Joint Techs Conference in Lincoln, Neb.

Case Study

Editor's Note: Since the launch of our beta speed test on February 21, 2008, BroadbandCensus.com has been using the Network Diagnostic Tool (NDT) speed test developed by the educational consortium Internet2. The following is a "case study" prepared by Internet2, with the assistance of BroadbandCensus.com. It was distributed at the Joint Techs Workshops: an international conference of networking engineers, taking place in Lincoln, Neb., from July 19-24, 2008. Further information is available in the links below. -Drew Clark, Editor, BroadbandCensus.com BroadbandCensus.com is a new Web service that provides the public with free information on local broadband availability, competition, speeds and service. By participating in an anonymous online census questionnaire, users can greatly contribute to the knowledge and understanding about the state of the nation’s broadband competition and services – particularly as federal lawmakers consider issues in the development of a national broadband policy.

The Challenge

A crucial component of the Broadband Census service is its beta speed test. It allows consumers all across the country to test their residential high-speed Internet connections to determine whether broadband providers are delivering the promised services.

The Solution

In order to provide this service, BroadbandCensus.com has deployed...

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‘Taking the Broadband Census for America’ is Subject of Session at Portland, Ore., Conference on Wednesday, July 23

Press Release

WASHINGTON, July 11, 2008 – BroadbandCensus.com Executive Director Drew Clark has been invited to address the Summer Committee Meetings of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, to be held from July 20 to July 23 in Portland, Oregon. Clark launched BroadbandCensus.com in January 2008. The FREE web service allows consumers to type in their ZIP code and find out how many broadband providers the Federal Communications Commission says are available. The site then invites users to enter their ZIP+4 code, select their broadband carrier from a drop-down menu, and rate their carrier’s performance on a scale of one to five stars. Site visitors are then led to a beta speed test, which compares actual internet speeds against carriers’ offered internet speeds. With the addition of the beta speed test in February 2008, thousands of visitors have Taken the Broadband Census, offered their comments about local broadband providers, and used the speed test. Besides better informing consumers, BroadbandCensus.com seeks to aid policy-makers crafting sensible broadband policies based on solid research. BroadbandCensus.com is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial License. That means that the site is...

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