Comments on: I Say Broadband Maps, You Say Boondoggle

By: Presenting Our National Broadband Map. It’s a Start.: Broadband News and Analysis «

Thu, 17 Feb 2011 17:25:05 +0000

[...] Reinvestment and Recovery Act the mapping project was finally funded. We’ve covered the challenges inherent in creating a broadband map, and some of our issues with the plans to create the map that was unveiled today, but even if this [...]

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:41:46 +0000

Whether ConnectedNation, LinkAmerica or BroadMap or other, there are alliances that will bend the best of them toward their interests or the interests of their consortium. Whether it is Google or AT&T or Verizon or whatever…this country is rife with people trying to influence to maximize their outcome.

Brett, I think that you are happy with a small company – and the others are not. You want to protect your local knowledge, and the others want to grab it. Bottom line is that if you provide a better service at a competitive price, why would anyone be successful in targeting you. If you are not, then you will cease to exist. Pretty simple.

By: I Say Broadband Maps, You Say Boondoggle - Ryan Boswell

I Say Broadband Maps, You Say Boondoggle - Ryan Boswell — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 15:00:41 +0000

[...] I Say Broadband Maps, You Say Boondoggle [...]

By: Brett Glass

Brett Glass — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 02:41:42 +0000

Paul, I don’t think you understand. One of the great things about Connected Nation is that it plays all of the big guys off against one another. None of them want their confidential data revealed to the others, and the confidentiality upon which they insist extends to smaller providers like us.

You also seem to think that we’re a cellular provider. We’re not. We’re a WISP. That’s very different. The locations of our access points are not obvious. And playing our cards close to our vest is essential to competing with the big guys, who, with modern GIS technology, could literally target us for anticompetitive tactics on a block-by-block basis.

By: Paul Kapustka

Paul Kapustka — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 19:21:40 +0000

So Brett — you would prefer “statistics” compiled by a group funded by those same “large, unscrupulous competitors” as opposed to a simple map that just shows whether or not broadband is available or not? Which is more unscrupulous and evil?

Seems to me like some providers fear maps because it would give consumers real data about where coverage is and where coverage isn’t, instead of having to rely on advertising that claims “more bars anywhere” with no numbers to back those claims up. And really, how much information could your competitors gain from a map that they couldn’t figure out from driving around and spotting cell towers?

By: Brett Glass

Brett Glass — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:07:17 +0000

We are a small Wyoming Internet service provider who declined to participate in the Wyoming mapping project performed by CostQuest. We made this decision because the study was commissioned by the Wyoming Telecommunications Council, a state government body. Wyoming has a very strong open records law, which very likely could have been used to obtain the exact data which we submitted, NDAs and assurances of confidentiality notwithstanding. And that data could have been used by large, unscrupulous competitors — such as the incumbent cable and telephone monopolies — to take anticompetitive actions against us.

We must always remember one of the essential elements of any census — broadband or otherwise — is confidentiality. People, for good reason, will not reveal sensitive information about themselves or their businesses unless confidentiality is assured — preferably by law. One of the good things about Connected Nation is that they have an ironclad NDA and would be hired by the Federal (not state) government, which would allow the information to be kept in confidence.

Do not believe the FUD spread by Public Knowledge, an inside-the-Beltway lobbying group funded heavily by Google (which has motives of its own: it wants the Internet to become a heavily regulated duopoly so that ISPs are straitjacketed and can never compete with it). Unless we want a broadband mapping effort to kill competition by enabling anticompetitive tactics, Connected Nation or a group like them is the right way to go.

By: John

John — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:29:19 +0000

re: “After the mapping company gets information from the providers, it needs to map it to GIS coordinates. ” What exactly are “GIS coordinates?” Are these different than latitude/longitude? Are the data not collected with latitude/longitude?