New Broadband Mapping A Step In The Right Direction

8/3/2019

One of the biggest sore spots in America's technology landscape is the lack of accurate broadband mapping. Past FCC efforts to identify which areas of the country have access to broadband and which ones don't been widely criticized as inadequate. Well, things are about to change.

At their August 1st meeting, the FCC ordered a significant change to how ISP's will report their service areas moving forward. Under the previous mapping regime, ISP's would report which census blocks they offered service. Even if only one premise in a large census block had service available, the entire block would be considered "served" by the FCC. This means that many areas without broadband access are then ineligible to receive buildout funding.

Under the new mapping plan, ISP's must report their service areas not in terms of census blocks but by drawing geospatial polygons that more clearly define where service is currently available or could be provided within 10 business days of a request. The result of this change is that have-nots should no longer be identified as have's on the FCC's broadband maps, making those areas potentially eligible for funding.

CLICK HERE to read the FCC's full order. Ars Technica also has a good article summarizing the decision.

1 Comment

Charles Dostale link

8/6/2019 08:34:45 am

Although this seems to be a notice asking for comments, there should have been more direction placed to narrow the focus.

If the FCC is going to throw out using census blocks, then some other standard grid overlay should be chosen. Providers should not be able to gerrymander the lines designating coverage areas. This type of free-form coverage area delineation will make it very difficult for consumers to compare coverage supplied by different providers. All providers need to have the same areas mapped showing what is covered. For example there is an international grid standard used for search/rescue that could be used rather than spending time and money to establish a new standard, or having each provider pull random GIS polygon areas out of the air.

The document speaks to creating GIS polygons, but no mention of a requirement that open source or freely available software should be used, and that the file format should not be patent encumbered. Giant, rich providers have the resources to spend thousands on software and training for the creation of these polygon maps. Smaller providers ( such as most municipalities ) may not be able to spend the money to license software or dedicate the staff time to create these new maps. Right now all a provider needs to find census blocks is a PDF reader. PDF is an open standard with multiple freely available options for reader software. The FCC should not create a proprietary silo of map data only unlocked by paying a tax/toll to a specific software vendors.

It may be a good idea to be more granular establishing coverage in rural areas. Census blocks are plenty granular where population density is less sparse. However this effort by the FCC looks to put financial and resource pressures on smaller providers so the large providers can squeeze those smaller providers out and potentially making it more difficult for consumers to access or understand that data.

New Broadband Mapping A Step In The Right Direction

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