Show HN: Finally a legit way to search for broadband providers by zip.
broadbandnow.com
broadbandnow.com
* There are 3,413 individual broadband providers in the US.
* There are 39.3 million Americans underserved (only one or zero wired providers)
* Fiber penetration isn't nearly as bad in some states as it is in others. (http://broadbandnow.com/fiber)
* Verizon wireless does indeed have the largest coverage in the US out of mobile phone providers (http://broadbandnow.com/mobile)
Let me know if anyone has questions about how we crunched, cleaned, or collected all of this data.
We're happy to share our experiences (and nightmares) of working with more than 50+ different governmental organization's data.
I can also pull my business partner the DB engineer in if there are more technical questions.
After entering my ZIP I'm prompted with: "Your internet provider is Time Warner Cable, would you recommend their service to a friend?"
True, Time Warner is my employer's Internet provider, but not mine. Also, because this is a modal, I'm forced to pass judgment on a provider that isn't mine.
(edit: My bad; I can close the modal. Still, it isn't the most logical user action if I happen to be at work.)
I look forward to improvements. I'm not sure I'll get a lot of options in suburban Texas, but I'd like to see options anyway.
Most of the reviews of providers are full of negativity because of a recent bad experience... to counteract this our goal is to get users to rate their experience when they aren't having problems so we get a more unbiased review.
"I'm on someone else's internet."
Thanks for the suggestion.
Because of the way the government collects the data (census based) zipcode is the easiest for the consumer to understand and is only a little less accurate (except in really big zip codes).
We're in this for the long haul, so in the future we'd love to hook into the main lookups for the big companies and find the REAL data instead of just using governmental data. We'll see if that happens. ;)
That is waaaaay off.
Most were probably fixed wireless in where there are over a thousand, yet most people don't know they exist.
Next time you drive on a big highway look for the big circular antennas on the cell towers. (or smaller white ones).
Most of them were fiber providers who you can't actually get fiber from. I work for an ISP that does service this area and we tend to keep up on what's available in our service area.
Don't get me wrong -- I realize you're attempting a massive undertaking but, based upon the searches I did, there is a lot of incorrect data in your database.