 PDXPLT
join:2003-12-04 Banks, OR
| reply to TKJunkMail Re: FCC has access to dozens of independent studies
said by TKJunkMail :They choose to follow the 1/zip info because it is probably backed by some regulations and protects their ass in court challenges. They choose to use this one because it is the most optimistic.
Under the 1996 Telecomm Act, if the FCC were to find that broadband deployment is not progressing well, that finding would trigger requirements for all sorts of action, regulatory actions that the present FCC is loathe to undertake. So they are damn careful to use a metric to make things look as rosy as possible.
It is highly inaccurate, though. In the zip code I live in, only the town center, near the telco CO and the Cable trunk from the next town over, are supplied with broadband. But the vast majority of the Zip code is unserved. By the FCC metric, however, the whole zipcode is counted as served. |