Broadband Reports

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article does not cite any references or sources. (October 2006)
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

Broadband Reports, located at the web URL www.dslreports.com (mirrored at www.broadbandreports.com), is a North American-oriented information and review site based in New York City. The site's main focus is on high speed Internet services in the United States and Canada, such as DSL, cable Internet, and fiber optics. As of January 22, 2007, dslreports.com is the first result which shows up on Google when searching for the term "broadband". Although the site is still called Broadband Reports, it is located at dslreports.com due to issues with Google's PageRank.

Broadband Reports was created by Justin Beech in June of 1999. [1] According to Alexa's pageranking system, dslreports.com went online on May 28, 1999. As of March 2006, Alexa showed that it was within the top one thousand most visited websites on the Internet. [2] See the Alexa article for information regarding possible inaccuracy in these figures.

[edit] Site features

Broadband Reports allows its users to submit reviews of their Internet service provider (ISP), Web Hosting Service, and Digital Phone service. Users may also read reviews written by others. Many large ISPs have over a thousand reviews on the site. Reviews may be filtered for the user's location and/or connectivity preference.

Broadband Reports Homepage

The site is also a source of HSI (high speed Internet) related news. BBR's editors post HSI-related news items on the site's front page throughout the day. Common topics of news items and features include wireless technologies, peer-to-peer filesharing, upgrades and new offerings from high speed ISPs, and security issues.

Other site services include speed tests, line monitoring, tweak testing, and packet loss testing. Some of these services are provided free of charge, but others require the user to purchase "tool points".

[edit] Community

Broadband Reports operates over 200 forums, many of which focus on Internet and computer-related topics. Other forums are dedicated to general conversation, political discussions, or regional discussions. There are approximately 100,000 active posters, and over a million total registered users on the Broadband Reports forums. A forum thread is automatically created for every news article posted on the front page, which allows members to discuss the article in question. The members of the Broadband Reports community usually use the acronym "BBR" to refer to the site, although members prior to the name change still refer to the site as DSLR.

A large, constantly updated list of ISP listings and consumer reviews has been part of the site since its inception.

Technical forums on the site include: