The folks over at EVDOforums were kind enough to spam me today with details about their new EVDOmaps project. The point of EVDOmaps is to allow wireless broadband users to post quality of service details to an interactive map.

In their own words:

We’re using the latest in “Google Mashup” technology to “geocode” the records onto Google maps, allowing everyone to see where EVDO has been spotted, at what speeds, on what network carrier, and using what devices.

We expect to accomplish a few objectives with the new site:

- a cool and easy way to find out if EVDO is in a specific area.
- a way to get the word out about coverage, before official word is out
- a way to see if an area is ‘oversold’, and suffers from too many users
- a way to see how much benefit there is from antennas and amplifiers

While this feels like a rough pass at creating a useful tool for subscribers to submit, and present, their data I like the idea and hope others will consider to improve on the concept and offer some standard tests. Here’s hoping the carriers don’t use this tool to illegitimately boost their image.