BroadbandWiki Beta Begins

Please help test the broadbandwiki project at http://s3.amazonaws.com/broadbandwiki/broadbandwiki.html. There’s no doubt it has bugs and it can certainly be improved. Bug reports and suggestions as comments on this post would be great.

The purpose of the broadbandwiki project, which was built with the GoogleMaps API and stores its database on Amazon’s S3 Service, is to enable Vermonters to help Vermont reach its goal of becoming the first e-state in the nation with both cellular coverage and usable broadband everywhere – which means everywhere – in the State by the end of 2010. However, in the spirit of open source and open competition, I’m happy to make the application available to any state or organization with a similar mission. In fact, I’ll make the code openly available, period, very soon. One problem may be to avoid too many databases soliciting the same information and leading to fragmentation.

The concept of the application is simple. You enter your address, type of Internet access, and provider. The app puts a pin, which is color coded to show your access type, on a map. Once there are enough pins (as there already are in Stowe, Vermont), they are immediately useful for seeing what type of access is available in a neighborhood. They also graphically illustrate where lack of access is a problem for residents and an opportunity for a provider.

Like many Web applications, this database is not really useful until it contains a critical mass of data – at least on a location by location basis. People can – and I hope will – go directly to the site and place their pin. The plan is to have this incorporated soon in the site of the Vermont Telecommunications Authority. It can also be imbedded in or linked to from the sites of the many towns which are taking an active role in providing for their broadband future. But the best way to get this populated will be for other towns to do what Stowe did while we were testing – set up a table at an event where a lot of people come together and get the people to pin their locations on the spot. After one day of work, Stowe’s part of the map reached critical mass.

If you live in Vermont, entries you make in the map are “live” and will be immediately useful. If you don’t live in Vermont, your entry will appear on the map while you are looking at it but you’ll be warned that it’s not really being stored in the database. Either way, I’d appreciate your help both in supplying the data and testing the application.

Thanks.

Comments

[Tom Evslin]

Fraser:

Thanks for the kind comments I'm glad you liked hackoff.com.

I'm hoping that some of the services that doa good job of running speed tests will somehow affiliate with this effort, They already have databases of experince and the technology to do the tests. One problem is that so far people are not filling this out from home.

[Tom Evslin]

Meg M:

Thanks for your help with this. Am still researching the problem. Turns out Google doesn't make the same data available to apps like this that it uses when you access Google maps online. In the latter case your address does show up (altho with a town designation of Brattleboro as you suspected might happen).

[Tom Evslin]

Rick S:

Many people do not fill this out from home - for eample, we got most of the Stowe locations at a booth in the High School on Town Meeting Day.

I think we'll have to rely on the wiki nature of this to smooth out errors.

Thanks for the idea, however.

[Tom Evslin]

CJ:

Thanks for your comment. You are right about the typo and it's fixed.

The data in Vermont belongs to the Vermont Telecommunications Authority (and towns that help gather it) so not mine to distribute.

The Google API does give latitude and longitude.

[Fraser]

Tom,

It would be nice if you could cross-reference data on the speeds available with data collected on sites such as BroadBandreports.com. Maybe you could incorporate one or more Speed Test Tools into your tool/site and collect the data yourself when the people add their info. Graphing that data on Google would be tricky, though it would be cool to be able to see DSL speed for homes along a street drop as they get further and further from the DSLAM. This is the kind of data some people would love to see when purchasing a new home!

One person suggested capturing the "submitting IP" - that will work as long as people aren't accessing the site from work (as I am right now) or using a VPN. Thus, even if the "Provider" and the provider owning the "submitting IP" are different it does not mean the data is necessarily suspect or malicious.

BTW, loved Hackoff.com, listened to it on podiobooks.com. Highly recommended, entertaining and educational!

[Meg M]

I love this idea, but was dismayed to find that the app couldn't find my address -- only street address and zip. I live in Marlboro, and wonder if the town is in some kind of a black hole.

[Rick S]

Noticed a few instances of "Verizon" "cable" in the map. Unless Verizon is
offering FIOS in VT, these are likely incorrect entries. Possible enhancement would
be to capture the submitting IP address and verify the provider based on the IP.

[CJ]

I love this idea, it certainly is one way around providers not offering coverage information. I'm not sure how you filter out inaccurate information whether intentional or not, but its a great start. I still wonder who owns the data, along with your open source policy, does the accrued data go with the app? Are latitude and longitude for each data point available from the GoogleAPI?

No access (I don't think I would have included this option), dial up, and other are all white - could be a bit misleading until one can see the actual data.

Although very subjective, quality of service would be nice to know as well.

I did notice a small mistake, I believe the sentence "You have not aked for your name or other identifying information and no such information is stored." should start with "We" and not "You"? And of course asked has a typo.

Great job!