On Fri, 12 Mar 2010, Steven Bellovin wrote:
What they really need is something more or less like an accurate zip code, I suspect. They want to find out what real "broadband" speeds are in different parts of the country. Putting in a fake address renders your data useless.
The FCC used to collect the data by zip code; but a few years ago Congress told the FCC that measuring broadband availability by zip code wasn't good enough. ZIP code boundaries tend to vary in size, and cross political jurisdictions. Cable system and Central Office wire areas also tend to vary in size and cross political jurisdictions, so things won't match up exactly. Now I believe FCC tries to collect broadband data by census tract. The problem is most people don't know what census tract they are in. So they are probably trying to figure out the census tract based on the postal address entered. The Federal Register notice was published at http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/E9-31009.htm