Comments on: Broadband Locator

By: Chad

Chad — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:40:42 +0000

Hey Sunny, which form is it that you are talking about?

cheers

By: sunny

sunny — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:33:51 +0000

i like it, except for the fact that after i have submitted the form, and the comparisons are explained, i can’t then go back and change like one thing in the form. when you go back, all the input is gone. really hate it when sites do this.

By: Chad

Chad — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 23:20:45 +0000

Hey fourcultures, glad it helped Thanks for the feedback.

By: fourcultures

fourcultures — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:52:56 +0000

Thank you – your site has just saved me $30 a month while giving me an extra 3GB of downloads. This information was not available on any other site including whirlpool, which seems to just list providers that might be available, not ones that actually are. Some interesting comments above about why your site is no good in theory. In practice it’s worth $360 a year to me.

By: Chad

Chad — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 03:12:52 +0000

Hey Alan, thanks for the reply. You may well be quite right. I place the ads on the website to help pay for the discounts section. (I don’t make a profit from the website). So if the entry gets disqualified because of the ads then so be it. I think the discounts for users is worth them sesing a couple of ads.

By: Alan Contrini

Alan Contrini — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 02:47:05 +0000

Chad, According to the rules you must not include submissions that are:

any commercial endorsement, promotion of any product, service or publication; privacy invasive;

You have clearly done this on yourbroadbandchoice.com.auin numerous locations: 1. Google Ads under the Sponsored Links Area 2. After you do a search there is banner at the top of the results 3. You have even included a link to "Advertiser with Us" Not sure how this will rate with judges of this competition. Alan

By: Chad

Chad — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 22:13:29 +0000

Sorry Michael, but you are wrong. Yes whirlpool lists providers at a exchange (not isps, but just the providers) BUT that is only useful IF your line supports SSS/ULL. Quite a few lines are on Pair Gain, some on RIMs, some have excessive transmission loss. If you are any of those lines, then this list is completely useless. If you enter the phone number my website will actually tell you what your line supports (only one in australia that does that).

Just because I am only using one dataset doesn’t mean i am not mashing up government data. Most of my data comes from the ACCC and ACMA which is the point of mashup. Using government data to help citizens.

By: Michael Harris

Michael Harris — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 07:05:44 +0000

Two points: 1) "Everyone just gives one big list, which is full of ISPs that can not service your location, and will lead to frustration when the user can’t get the plan they have picked." Wrong. BC.whirlpool shows only those ISP's with listed plans that service your area, based on complex information including exchange location, what types of DSLAMS are available at that exchange, and allows you to limit them based on critera including price point, required quota, the service type etc. 2) What James Dellow's Medicare entry shows is that Government information can easily be made machine readable and reused in multiple ways - the key point of mashup australia, being that data is no longer locked up behind an agency delivery interface and can be delivered in more useful and functional ways for the customer. My proof of concept (whic isn't an entry in the contest) simply shows his entry works, and demonstrates how his entry could be used at a very basic level.

By: Chad

Chad — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 04:26:57 +0000

Thanks for the feedback, i will take them on board, here are my responses to some of the points you have made

adsl2exchanges has the address as a single text field, which is very poor for a programmer once you want to call functions where you are required to break up the address, i fail to see how this is better than my breaking it up.

I agree with the plans, I need to work on displaying them nicer ‘data dump’ as you refer to. A few people have said the same thing, but everytime i ask them for their suggestions on how to fix it, there is never a reply.

I will take those points on board. I have never been great at appearance and the emphasis has always been on functionality. There is still no website out there that does 1/5th the work to truly determine what services are actually available for someone. Everyone just gives one big list, which is full of ISPs that can not service your location, and will lead to frustration when the user can’t get the plan they have picked.

So how do you rate the medicare locator that would have been done in less than 2 minutes? is that “new and game changing”?

By: Michael Harris

Michael Harris — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 03:10:54 +0000

Read my response below, and you’ll get a good idea as to why your site offers nothing more, and is actually worse than, BC.whirlpool and adsl2exchanges.