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Comment by vlovich123 | Hacker News Reader

This should really be normalized as MB/capita. Basic data/voice coverage in the vast wilderness is important for safety, but speed is really more relevant in more populated regions. Geographic maps like this aren't useful, especially without more powerful filtering tools (e.g. specifying a minimum speed & showing that coverage).

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> Specifically, it shows where customers can expect to receive 4G LTE broadband service at a minimum user download speed of five megabits per second (5 Mbps) and a user upload speed of one megabit per second (1 Mbps)

I feel like this isn't a helpful quotation when I'm obviously saying "Now how do I see where minimum user download speed is 10 Mbps & upload is a minimum 3mbps"? A static map isn't useful for data analysis.

It also doesn't address that geographic maps aren't useful for showing deployment of services for people.

That's a pretty difficult question to answer, and the source data for this map certainly does not contain that information.

To even begin to answer that question, you have to define the problem a little more specifically first:

What does minimum upload/download speed mean? The minimum ever observed? By who? The minimum over a period of time? Through the entire network, or to the tower? Prioritized or deprioritized? Under what testing conditions? Under what usage patterns?

About the closest you're going to get is this: https://webcoveragemap.rootmetrics.com/

Well the map is generated by a propagation model based on where the towers are, so if anything it should be even easier for them to generate such things than if it was driven by data collection.

These are charts for LTE coverage. You might be more interested in a 3G chart, which is sufficient for safety in wilderness and will have more coverage.

Apparently 3G is being phased out by AT&T (and I think most other providers have already left 3G) in the US.

Which sucks because I can get a 3G module for my iot projects for 5$ and I think 4G modules start at 50$?

Are we just at the mercy of 4G now for services that need large coverage but low throughput? I know 5G technically has a spec for IOT type stuff but I haven't seen anything about it, and I haven't seen modules for it.

It’s been awhile since I’ve been near this space, but I know that several LTE-A vendors were at one point working on the low-bandwidth RAN tech for IOT in the 5G spec. Not sure if that changes anything about your post, but at least it’s not been totally ignored.

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