Mapping Help
The beginners guide
The mapping system is designed to be as easy to use as possible. If you just want to browse around your area to see what telephone exchanges are nearby and what services they provide, then simply enter the name of your area in the search box and click Search. You can then zoom in, zoom out or move around the map (by clicking and dragging with your mouse).
Exchanges will appear as blue buildings on the map and will appear dynamically as you move around. You can click on any exchange to see a summary of the wholesale services at the exchange (e.g. the ADSL, SDSL, LLU and cable services in the area).
If you're looking to move home or are just interested in your own area, then the mapping system has something for you too. Click on any road or place on the map to receive useful information including the connected telephone exchange and the distance from it in metres. There's also an option here to perform a broadband availability check (see below for more on this).
Exchanges will appear as blue buildings on the map and will appear dynamically as you move around. You can click on any exchange to see a summary of the wholesale services at the exchange (e.g. the ADSL, SDSL, LLU and cable services in the area).
If you're looking to move home or are just interested in your own area, then the mapping system has something for you too. Click on any road or place on the map to receive useful information including the connected telephone exchange and the distance from it in metres. There's also an option here to perform a broadband availability check (see below for more on this).
Checking broadband availability using the map
The new mapping system also allows you to check broadband availability using the map directly. Users need not know the postcode or the phone number of the property they want to check availability for, making it particularly useful for those looking to move home.
To perform an availability check, first navigate to the road of the property you want to check on the map. As described earlier, click on the road at any point and a small popup will appear indicating the road name. There will also be an option to enter a house name/number and a button labelled "Check".
If you know the house name or number, enter it into the box provided and click Check. If you don't, just leave the box empty and click Check (but realise that this will give a less accurate result!). This will begin the checking process in the bar to the left of the map. Don't worry if it's a bit slow - the check may take up to 30 seconds, during which time you can continue to browse the map and make other checks.
Once the results are ready they will be displayed in the bar on the left. The results are broken down in to three distinct parts - ADSL availability, cable availability and ADSL2+ availability. Clicking on any of them will reveal a selection of providers offering services using that technology. Where the provider in question offers differing services based upon LLU coverage (Click here for more), a summary of the product type and price difference is shown. For example, in areas which AOL has unbundled (LLU), they discount their monthly prices by £10.
Please note that if your input matched multiple addresses then you will be prompted to confirm your address using a drop down list. If no suitable address could be found at all then an error will be displayed.
To perform an availability check, first navigate to the road of the property you want to check on the map. As described earlier, click on the road at any point and a small popup will appear indicating the road name. There will also be an option to enter a house name/number and a button labelled "Check".
If you know the house name or number, enter it into the box provided and click Check. If you don't, just leave the box empty and click Check (but realise that this will give a less accurate result!). This will begin the checking process in the bar to the left of the map. Don't worry if it's a bit slow - the check may take up to 30 seconds, during which time you can continue to browse the map and make other checks.
Once the results are ready they will be displayed in the bar on the left. The results are broken down in to three distinct parts - ADSL availability, cable availability and ADSL2+ availability. Clicking on any of them will reveal a selection of providers offering services using that technology. Where the provider in question offers differing services based upon LLU coverage (Click here for more), a summary of the product type and price difference is shown. For example, in areas which AOL has unbundled (LLU), they discount their monthly prices by £10.
Please note that if your input matched multiple addresses then you will be prompted to confirm your address using a drop down list. If no suitable address could be found at all then an error will be displayed.
Accuracy of the data
The new mapping engine makes extensive use of the existing database we have and couples it closely with the Google Maps API, which provides the postcode and address lookup functionality. A special thank you goes to Nico for his Reverse Geocoder addon for the Google Maps API (Click here for more).
The availability checks offer a significant improvement over the existing postcode-level checks in use by ourselves and others. These new checks are premise-level for all ADSL based services and Virgin Media's cable services. The estimated speed for ADSL broadband services is derived directly from BT Wholesale's checker systems. Note that the ADSL2+ speed estimates are derived from the distance from the exchange and the ADSL speed attainable, correlated against the Internode graph (Available here).
The exchange coverage polygons are derived from known postcodes served by the exchanges (captured from historical checks performed on the existing availability checker). Sampling well over a million such records and combining it the data with Google's geocoding engine has enabled us to produce the polygons. Note that these are likely to be erroneous in some instances, primarily due to a postcode being incorrectly tagged to an exchange. Such errors will be cleared up over time.
The availability checks offer a significant improvement over the existing postcode-level checks in use by ourselves and others. These new checks are premise-level for all ADSL based services and Virgin Media's cable services. The estimated speed for ADSL broadband services is derived directly from BT Wholesale's checker systems. Note that the ADSL2+ speed estimates are derived from the distance from the exchange and the ADSL speed attainable, correlated against the Internode graph (Available here).
The exchange coverage polygons are derived from known postcodes served by the exchanges (captured from historical checks performed on the existing availability checker). Sampling well over a million such records and combining it the data with Google's geocoding engine has enabled us to produce the polygons. Note that these are likely to be erroneous in some instances, primarily due to a postcode being incorrectly tagged to an exchange. Such errors will be cleared up over time.
