CenturyLink → Updated Minneapolis speed test map

I re-ran the addresses contained in the map in this thread: »Minneapolis Centurylink Speed map (Including Fiber rollout)

(Direct link: »www.easymapmaker.com/map ··· 647ca456)

New map from data gathered last night: »www.easymapmaker.com/map ··· -15-2015

So there are now traces of gig internet in Hopkins and St. Paul (uncheck everything but 1000 at the bottom to see them).

I have a python script that runs the addresses to check their speeds, and I hope to update the map from time to time to see the progression of CL fiber.

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Edit 5/11/2016:

Instructions on how to run this yourself using Vagrant, Ansible and VirtualBox:

»github.com/mtdoyle/CLSpe ··· EADME.md

I have included my giant list of addresses that will be downloaded as part of the instructions above.

Let me know if anything doesn't work!

NOTE: running this script with a large amount of addresses takes a LOT of bandwidth. Each run for me eats up somewhere between 20-40Gb of data. If your internet is capped, you might want to only use a smaller subset of addresses.

Awesome! Thanks for this!

Thanks for updating the map! Hopefully the progress continues.

This map is awesome!

It would be interesting to see it with more data points for higher "resolution".

I feel like this guy...

I'd love to get more addresses but I don't know how other than paying for them or manually right-clicking a bunch of addresses on Google maps and choosing " What's here?". If anyone has a list of addresses they'd like me to add, please do!

Hmm, can I ask how you got your current list of addresses?

I viewed the source of the original map and was able to extract the addresses.

For what it is worth, a month or so ago, I saw guys on boom trucks stringing cable on poles in the Linden Hills neighborhood of Minneapolis. I stopped and asked the guys if it is fiber. Answer "yes". Asked what company they are installing for, answer "Century Link". I drive by this area everyday, haven't seen them for awhile, and there is a loop of fiber hanging on a pole about a block away from where I saw them. Maybe when the weather is better they will finish the job. This was near 44th ST and Upton Ave.

Cool, that's approaching my neighborhood, but not super close - still a few miles away. I wonder if they are trying to compete with USI's fiber deployment.

My house is served by poles, so I'm hopeful that they will run fiber there sooner since it's cheaper than trenching.

Remember, CLink does a lot more than just residential.
They are constantly building fiber to servr businesses, schools, etc, etc.
So just because a crew is building fiber, it certainly does not mean it's for the gig product.

Love the map but I don't see any apartment buildings listed. CL has a a couple buildings in DT MPLS

Whoops, I didn't realize this was posted by a different person. Do you know how blakehaas generated the original list of addresses?

I don't know exactly how he did it, but this blog post has an explanation of what he did: »blogs.twincities.com/you ··· -reader/

I have PMd him to explain it a bit better so I can expand my address list, but haven't heard back yet.

I wrote an application that would take 4 starting coordinates (a geofence of sorts) and then it would reverse lookup the geoocordinates within that boundary and give me addresses using google maps api.

The problem is that many of the addresses for one reason or another dont perfectly sync with the addresses centurylink views as valid. So I end up with 20k addresses, but after querying for speeds, i only have 7k valid results.

Thanks for creating the maps. Please continue keeping all of us updated. It's really appreciated.

Does anyone know where I can find the upload speeds? I want to ditch Comcast however I don't want my games to lag.

Any chance that you'd share your program or use it to generate more addresses for minnesnowta to generate a "higher resolution" map?

Generating more addresses wont really help. I generated over 30k addresses. If they aren't a direct match with centurylink's database of addresses then it doesn't matter how many you generate, they wont match.

here is how to do it if you want to waste some time.
»developers.google.com/ma ··· -reverse

When typing the address in it uses AJAX to show you matches, you should be able to programatically select the first one in that list and then submit that address for speed test check..

Thanks, Blake!

I came up with this little script to reverse-geocode: »pastebin.com/Ggm0HhFU

It requires the installation of this python library: »pypi.python.org/pypi/pygeocoder

I used python 2.7.3 on Ubuntu.

It takes two coordinate sets:

curr_lat and curr_lon are the lat and lon coordinates of the NW corner of the geofence. end_lat and end_lon are the coordinates of the SE corner of the geofence.

The google maps geocoding API has a limitation on how fast you can query it, so that's why every 5th query has a 1-second pause - otherwise you get an error saying you're over the query limit.

Edit: Just scanned the resulting addresses and got 210 valid addresses - no sign of gig, though (Just checked the Eagan area).

Anyway to do this in other territories from CLink and other providers? It would be interesting to see how AT&T is faring.

For what it's worth, trucks were stringing fiber down our (residential) alley in Saint Paul, zip 55116, with new boxes which say "Corning OptiSheath Multiport" which the internet tells me is "designed for use in outside plant fiber access networks. This innovative terminal provides fast, easy subscriber connections..."

I mapped out some addresses in 55116 and no signs of fiber yet - but that makes sense if they're still in the middle of rolling out the equipment.

Excuse the URL: »www.easymapmaker.com/map ··· blahblah

I'm sure it's possible. My scripts are tailored to CenturyLink, but it shouldn't take someone too long to modify what I have for AT&T - assuming they have a feature on their website that allows you to type in an address and show you what speeds are available.

Yeah, I walked down the alley a couple blocks until I reached a pole with several hundred feet of coiled-up, unconnected fiber. Still, hoping it's not too much longer.
Anyway, thanks for the denser map!

Any chance of sharing your script? Thanks!

Sure!

The address generator is here: »pastebin.com/9vzb5Hmf

The speed checker is here: »pastebin.com/sKqVy96s

The address generator requires a python library called "pygeocoder": »pypi.python.org/pypi/pygeocoder

The speed checker requires a python library called "splinter" and firefox.

I can go into more detail, but I assume that you'd have some basic Python knowledge to run these scripts.

They were run in a Ubuntu 12.04 using python 2.7.3.

How I mapped the results was I took the output of the speed checker script and did a search and replace on commas to tabs, then uploaded that data to easymapmaker.com.

Let me know if you have any questions! If you are new to python, then you should google some python tutorials, but my scripts are pretty basic.

Thanks! I'll play with these tomorrow.

I think you're on to something. I used minnesnowta 's script to generate a list of addresses. The results have a lot of address ranges and street names with no house number. When you type an address into the CenturyLink website, it gives you a list of similar valid addresses to pick from. If someone could update the speed checking script to use one of the results from this list I think we'd get a lot more speed results.