I’m going to be moving at the end of the month, and I’m trying to figure out where to move to. One thing I care about is access to broadband internet. I know I can always “default” to cable internet, but the thought of paying Comcast $55/month for cable after having had SBC at abour $30/month really annoys me. I’ll be moving to Salt Lake City, so Qwest is an option, but my current problem is that there seems to be no way to actually determine coverage of any specific service. All things being equal I’d move into an apartment complex that offered DSL preferentially to one that offers cable since I consider broadband part of my expenses. I’ve looked at all the likely DSL prequal sources, and every one wants me to prequal with a phone number. I’ve had only marginal success using apartment complex main office numbers, and frankly it’s tedious. I’d like to find a map showing coverage locations (it’s CO related, and surely people know where the COs are, at which point any mapping app on the internet can take over).
Does anyone know of any sites that give geographical overview data of DSL coverage? Is there some reason why it’s almost impossible to determine coverage before you’ve actually moved in and set up a phone line?
Cost / numbers game. Most of the people getting DSL are either already in their current location where there is a phone number that they can plug in to the DSL availability web page, or they are moving in to a known location and know the telephone number at that location to plug in to the web page.
The key thing here is the phone number. The DSL/telcos have systems that can give them DSL availability with the telephone number in service as a search key. People know how to enter telephone number without making much in the way of mistakes. The two combined provide a simple way to provide a self-service lookup on the web.
Having people type in the address of the dwelling they want to check for DSL availability is not so easy. People are not good at typing in addresses, and trying to match addresses typed by a customer to ones in your database usually means that you need to implement or buy a fuzzy address matching tool. Given that using the phone number is good enough for the majority of people, why bother with something more sophisticated and expensive?
