The Hermantown Broadband Task Force wants to learn more about your internet access, connectivity speeds, provider experiences, and more. The following link will take you to a website that will tell you your current provider, download speeds and performance, and additional information. There are also a few questions to help inform us of your level of satisfaction with your current service. The information regarding your provider and performance is already public, but your feelings about your connectivity and whether or not it meets your needs are unknown.
Additionally, you can choose to submit your name and address to learn more about our broadband efforts and other City of Hermantown endeavors.
You can complete the survey multiple times and on different devices, as the information may vary based on usage, time of day, and other factors.
Broadband Survey Link
** The information garnered through this link can not and will not be sold by the City of Hermantown.**
What is latency?
Latency refers to the average total time that it takes your device to send data to the corresponding server, and then back to your device. Latency is measured in milliseconds (ms), so if your latency (or “ping” as it is often called) is “100ms” then it takes 100 milliseconds for your device to respond to a request from the hosting server. With time being a key measurement of performance, lower is better for latency.
What is jitter?
Information is transported from your computer in data packets across the internet. They are usually sent at regular intervals and take a set amount of time. Jitter is when there is a time delay in the sending of these data packets over your network connection. Essentially, the longer data packets take to arrive, the more jitter can negatively impact the video and audio quality. The lower the jitter, the better.
There is a pop-up that sometimes appears at the beginning of your survey, what should I do with it?
In some cases, you may have a choice to ‘block’ or ‘allow’ access after clicking into the survey. Allow simply lets the survey have a clearer picture of your location which will be used to map internet speeds and performance across Hermantown. Choosing to block will not allow that level of clarity in the survey.
When I’ve filled out the survey at different times, I have different results (or different devices have different results at the same time). Why is that the case?
There can be many reasons why a particular device or a particular time of day sees variation in speeds or other performance measures. The good news is that we want to capture that variation in this survey, so feel free to complete this survey from different devices or from the same device at different times. All of that information is helpful in getting a clearer picture of what is truly happening in Hermantown.
I don’t always see the emojis on the two satisfaction sliders within the survey. How do they work?
The further to the right you are the happier you are with your speeds and performance. The further to the left is unhappy. Apologies if you didn’t get to see the emojis. 🙂
Do I have to provide my contact information, such as my name and address?
No, you can submit this without the contact information. But if you’d like to be kept in the loop on how our survey information develops and additional next steps, please submit that information.
Who do I contact if I have questions about this survey?
Reach out to Joe Wicklund, Hermantown’s Communications & Community Engagement Director at 218-729-3600 or via e-mail at [email protected]