Can Broadband Be Mapped?

Hello,

there is no doubt Broadband can be mapped! And most of the information to help with that can be obtained from Telephone Exchanges.

Usually the hardest places to reach with cable is mountainous and or very hilly and rocky. but it most certainly can be mapped.

I talk from at the moment the UK and the broadband has been slow to filter to the upper parts of Scotland and the Isles. There is a way to transmit the signal from the nearest Exchange, similar to Sky broadband.

It is taking much longer to reach these out of the way places because there is hardly anyone there and so the cost per house is very expensive.

Is there a particular reason why you doubt the mapping may be possible?

It is just an excuse for more government and more taxes (bigger FCC and bigger re-election wallets for the house and senate). Is there a need for this? No. If government would stay out, the local businesses already know what is going on in their areas and how to best serve their public and make money by ensuring broadband access to as many as fiscally possible. What will the government do with all of this information once they get it? Well, 1) nothing at all, 2) tax us more so they can legislate stuff about broadband, 3) force the local companies to provide fiscally unviable service, causing all of our rates to go up in addition to the extra taxes we are paying for the privilege of having the government screw it all up. We know that one or more of these will be what happens. We also know that it will be the worst possible combination for us. Then, in a couple years we will all be stuck with old outdated service, but we can't afford the upgrade and our service company can't afford to provide it and even if they could, they have to provide the old outdated one because that is the law because of the government legislation. Will the moronic and self-serving wonders of a Democratic House and Senate never cease?!

Hello PhysicsProf:

I would just like to say I agree with almost all you say. However the original question was "is it possible to map broadband". It is!

But, often it is fiscally possible, but, too physically difficult to reach 'the last mile', for ISP's that are making a lot of money 'thank you very much'. They often need that extra little prod to get off their ar-es and do what is possible for the more inaccessible Towns and Islands. And, as I said this may mean using a transmitter from the last exchange to send the broadband those extra few miles.

I talk mainly of the UK as I live in both Europe and the UK. Two of the most difficult areas were and are the south west of England, and, the last third or so of Scotland, where the ground is almost all solid stone. In the UK just about all cables supplying broadband are underground. 'Virgin' is the owner of the largest cable network in the UK. This network was dug by mini back-hoes along all the accessible foot-paths in the UK. This was originally for Cable TV similar to 'Sky', but can now provide broadband. At the time the cost was huge but, that cost has been recouped.

Though the network broadband companies themselves, including British Telecom, who are usually the carriers of most broadband from the original telephone exchanges do a good job, it has taken a lot of pressure to get them to take their hands out of their pockets and actually try to get broadband to people, for whom it was said "it is not possible" in the past.

If it is possible to build huge monitoring stations to listen to everything that is said and done on Mobil Phones and broadband, then it is possible to reach those people at the bottom and top end of the UK. I know things may be different in the States, with so much more land to reach over deserts etc, but it can be done.

In the UK it was partly pressure from the Government which I think helped in a good way to convince the Phone companies and hence the broadband suppliers to reach that bit further. It did not involve the spending and any future spending by the Government as, all the infrastructure for the telephone etc is privatised. And by the way, the actual cost of the broadband to out-lying areas is passed on to those areas, thus helping out fiscally.

I agree with both of you. Yes it can be mapped. But the reason is not for better service. The greedy tax man is looking for more money so they can waste more. Not even a good excuse. Only the small rural communities have only one ISP and even then can do a satellite download setup from a dish cable co.

Brad

Hello U V:

I agree also! The Tax Man gets his cut whether it is from the ISP's actually digging their way through solid rock or, through the smaller communities getting Satellite feed. But, hey, thats life really!

If you were in one of these so called 'unreachable' places, who have had telephones for years anyway, it will pay either BT or another ISP (which uses BT lines and exchanges) to update the more outlying exchanges to allow for the broadband feed. My friend lives near the 'heel' part of Cornwall and he has found it hard to get broadband. When it arrived it was more expensive. Before that while we in the central part of the UK were using broadband, there were several companies set up by the locals themselves who took the feed from the nearest exchange and 'broadcast' it as per sky TV but, over much shorter distances. It was not until about four years ago, broadband arrived at my friend's in, the Southern most part of England, Cornwall, from BT.

BB = BroadBand

BW = BandWidth

BB mapping is quite easy, just depends on the resolution your looking at.

BB mapping gets harder and more complex the higher resolution your looking at dividing the map.

IPTables provides a way to monitor and give result data per IP address (A/B/C or D-Class) and/or protocol

SNMP also gives a way to monitor your BW

But the tighter the tolarance in your measurement, means the monitoring software has to be implemented in the progressively smaller and smaller ISP's

I graph the Ingoing and outgoing data streams for my home connection on DSL/Cable also for my work DSL connection too.