> ...people call up a broadband provider, get told there is broadband at their address, then they get told later that in fact it is not. Thus it's not clear tha

> ...people call up a broadband provider, get told there is broadband at their address, then they get told later that in fact it is not. Thus it's not clear that providers have a real handle on this at an operational level, never mind a synoptic level. The provider (or the provider's CSR) is being lazy. They absolutely do have the data. In AT&T's case, they have a Java software interface ("CPSOS") into which you can plug in an address and get back the distance in thousands of feet from the address to the nearest RT or CO (major network interconnection). The distance between those points gives you an estimate for the maximum DSL speed that can likely be supported; you can guarantee up to 6mpbs down at up to 5k feet if I remember right, and it tapers off from there to 10k feet, at which point you start saying, "we might be able to get you 512kbps but we're not sure, we'd have to try installing it and see what happens." The sense you get, both as a consumer and as a service provider that gets a little more of an inside view into these companies, is that they absolutely do have the data and the capability, but that isn't where their priorities are. They just want to make a buck with as little capital investment as possible, and everything that they do reflects that.