[coleca]

Is there any decent tool to determine areas where symmetric broadband coverage in a given area is available? From what I can see on the FCC map it just using their "broadband" definition of 25down/3up which is akin to dial-up for most of the folks on HN.

[Zigurd]

I'd bet operators of major conferencing software have a pretty good idea of how well ISP connections work nationwide. Aggregated (or even maybe not) they would paint a very accurate picture. Now we just need to get someone in government, who will probably become a lobbyist after, to care.

[db48x]

A few years back Microsoft mentioned that something like 42% of all Windows computers have less than the 25Mbps broadband that the government is aiming for. Of course, not all computers run Windows, and even then it doesn’t tell you the difference between broadband availability and the desire or ability to pay for it.

[mistrial9]

yes this is true -- it turns out that MSFT has easily measured the time it takes to download upgrades on a very large scale. This private data is mentioned in the Princeton study "No WANs Land: Mapping broadband connectivity"

[db48x]

Yes! I’m glad that they have at least gotten rid of their old map, based on census areas. That is progress at least.

[db48x]

There’s a little icon to the right of “Broadband” that you can click on to change the search criteria. It wasn’t obvious to me at first either.