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America Has Absolutely No Idea If Citizens Have Broadband
And it's a problem that's not going to be fixed any time soon

As we recently noted, Maryland lawmakers were working on a plan that would force ISPs in the state to present quarterly reports on exactly where they offer service and at what speeds in order to help the state solve broadband penetration issues. Local papers now report that the plan has been scuttled by Verizon and Comcast lobbyists, who claim the law would do everything from stifle innovation to close down regional coffee shops (that logic isn't explained).

Maryland's plan was a reaction to a problem we've touched on endlessly: FCC broadband data is not reliable, so nobody in this country really knows the depth of coverage gaps. Without knowing the reality on the ground, lawmakers can't draft effective policy (if such an idea was possible to begin with). The Center for Public Integrity recently sued the FCC in order to obtain the FCC's unpublicized raw data on broadband penetration (see our interview).

Incumbents have been fighting the release of that data, which would indicate exactly which neighborhoods incumbents deem "profitable to serve" and could shine light on the kind of calculations they use to come to that determination. Incumbents claim the release of the data would cause "competitive harm"; Verizon recently insisted that cherry picking affluent neighborhoods "was not in their corporate DNA."

The FCC seems unwilling to improve their data collection methodology. Incumbent providers are not interested in providing data that illuminates their deployment shortfalls. State and local governments are left without the information needed to help improve geographical broadband coverage, and attempts to correct this are shot down by deep-pocketed lobbyists. So what's the solution?

Most recommended from 43 comments


shoan
join:2006-02-27
Benton, AR

2 recommendations

shoan

Member

another approach

maryland could make a form or a website that the citizens of maryland could access and check boxes of what is offered to thier address. As incentive for this they could send a check for a few dollors for the citizens time. I know if I was told hey go to this state website and click yes or no to what was offered to my home be it dsl, cable, or wireless for a few dollors I would jump on it. Or they could add the question to the census that the state takes periodically. My town just recently held a special census just to see if they could get more state money since we are growing so fast. That way it is not forcing the providers to provide any information. But im sure they would lobby like hell to stop this simple way of mapping out where the broadband really is.