This might be useful to some. Article :
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62B08720100312
site :http://www.broadband.gov/
It requires giving your address.
What they really need is something more or less like an accurate zip code, I suspect. They want to find out what real "broadband" speeds are in different parts of the country. Putting in a fake address renders your data useless. One can ask why they aren't using IP geolocation; I suspect it's because it's not accurate enough. Your address? They may be interested in how many cable-feet you are from a CO, for DSL linkes.
Now -- under the Privacy Act, if they're collecting addresses I believe they had to do a Privacy Impact Assessment. Since I can't imagine why it would be classified, it should be publicly available. I don't see it, but I don't have time today to look for it.
--Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb
They are supposed to pay their income taxes too.
Color me paranoid if you like, but I worry that if you play their game
and DON'T answer the questions accurately and honestly, you have set
yourself up for a bad ride for lying to an Official Government Agency.
The FCC used to collect the data by zip code; but a few years ago Congress told the FCC that measuring broadband availability by zip code wasn't good enough. ZIP code boundaries tend to vary in size, and cross political jurisdictions. Cable system and Central Office wire areas also tend to
vary in size and cross political jurisdictions, so things won't match up
exactly.
Now I believe FCC tries to collect broadband data by census tract. The problem is most people don't know what census tract they are in. So they are probably trying to figure out the census tract based on the postal address entered.
The Federal Register notice was published at
http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/E9-31009.htm