We believe broadband access should be treated as shared infrastructure. Every person should have affordable easy access to connectivity.
This will only be possible if communities are able to self start on their broadband discovery journey.
After many years building broadband network planning software and completing designs for 10’s of millions of homes for the industry the founders of broadband.cat came together to enable anyone to use open source software and open data to detemine the cost of a network for their region.
There are many firsts for this project.
- The first open source broadband network project
- The first nation scale data pipeline
- The first auto integrated data fetching pipeline
- The first open data for network deployment cost
(Note: We are always very happy to be notified of corrections)
Why is this called broadband.cat
In short the internet was invented to send cat pictures. 1, 2
What is Geospatial Information Systems (GIS)?
If you look at a map then you think oh I want this in a digital format which I can edit like a document/spreadsheet then you have a GIS.
There are many platforms but by far the most ubitous is ESRI. There is also an open source alternative called QGIS.
Why use broadband.cat?
If you are a network owner. You can use the data to validate your network design costs.
If you are a community you can start a discussion about where you should deploy and share it with everyone. You might even use the cost for a simple business case.
If you want to add more connections to your network you can look for where to add them at what cost.
Who are we?
A group of developers and advocates for the adoption of broadband. You can join too! Send us a MEOW!
Where to now?
There are many features that are needed to make this as valuable as possible. For now we are engaging with the community to prioritize.
Add a issue on our Github.
I’m a company and I want to sponsor the project how can I engage?
There are many ways you can get involved. We are looking for banner sponsors, and contributions of funds/code to add new features/capability.
How is this different to auto design?
Auto design is focussed on getting to a construcible design. We focus on getting you the best cost estimate in the most accessible and open way.
What’s a auto design?
There are many vendors who create software to automate the network design.
The output from this software is used to build the network in what is refered to as a construction print.
This is great for a number of reasons.
- You can get more done faster
- You can ensure consistency
- You can try many design options
Currently the most common ones include Atesio, Biarri, Comsof, Setics Star but there are many more.