My Aunt Mary Treacy has been following telecommunications and information policy for many years. She is very involved with TIPR (Telecommunications Information Policy Roundtable) and more recently with the Minnesota Coalition on Government Information. Over the weekend she sent me information from a resource that was new to me – The Center for Public Integrity.
The Center for Public Integrity follows telecommunications issues, among other things. and they have a mission to “an effort to find out more about which companies are providing high-speed Internet access throughout the United States so that citizens have a better understanding of their service options.”
If you visit the site you can type in your zip code to check out the media providers (including broadband) in your area. (Are you in a metro area? Want a wake up call? Type in the zip of your cabin or country cousins and see the difference.)
They also track the top Telecommunications, Media and Technology Companies.
Thank you for mentioning the Center’s “Well Connected” project, where you can find out media, telecom and technology company ownership and political influence by zip code in your area. One correction though, you cannot check out broadband providers by zip code. Currently, the Federal Communications Commission does not publicly release that information, so it is not part of the Center’s “Well Connected” project.
Steve,
Thank you for the clarification! I see that I can get number of providers but not names. It’s interesting that the FCC doesn’t provide that info. The FCC seems to be looking more into broadband since the latest OECD rankings came out – I wonder I they will make that information available soon.
Thank you also for maintaining such a great site. I think it is so important that someone is tracking the integrity of media. We currently enjoy 2 major dailies (Minneapolis Star Tribune and the St Paul Pioneer Press) but each has undergone serious changes in the last couple of years. The loss of the papers and/or loss of independent papers is such a blow to access to news.
I am very interested in the impact of blogging on the news. I like to think that blogging is a good complement, not a replacement, to objective news reporting. I’m not sure that’s how things are shaking out. I know that many journalists have moved into blogging; some chose to leave, some had help, some have incorporated blogging into their roles with the papers.
Thanks again! Ann