Minnesota Broadband map — technique may be badly flawed
Dang nabbit! We're like the gang that can't shoot straight. We go to great lengths to get a good speed test of connections in Minnesota, so we can draw cool maps, so we can make some policy decisions about where the holes are in broadband coverage.
The report's due out soon -- so there's a big piece on MPR's site. Click HERE for the story. All kinds of good words and phrases. I liked the article a lot.
The only problem? The ding dang rippin' frippin' test may be inaccurate!! ARGH!
Aileen Horwath (long time super-credible player in the ISP space) just wrote a devastating article on the IpHouse blog that needs checking out RIGHT NOW! If Aileen's stuff checks out (which I'm pretty sure it will, given that Aileen has never missed in my experience) we've got us a badly flawed method on which the maps are being drawn.
Click HERE for this very important story. And peepul... Let's get some confirmation. The Broadband task force is meeting to talk about these tests on Feb. 6th. I'd like us to have some scoop before that meeting, if possible.
January 28th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Speed tests like these are oriented to residential DSL and cable modem subscribers. They will give a nice indication of your speed, at the minute of the test, if you're at home and on one of those types of connections.
I'm not sure what the Task Force is going to discuss regarding this map. It certainly won't provide a comprehensive survey of "broadband" access. Only those folks who happened to find out about this nonprofit's site or happened to listen to MPR at the time and actually follow up will be mapped. That doesn't seem like a very good representative population sample. I'm having a hard time understanding what this map is really supposed to represent or what anyone can be expected to learn from it, regardless of the technical aspects of the accuracy of each result.