Providers Resist FCC Broadband Mapping Proposal

Broadband providers like the idea of mapping but worry about the FCC’s approach, they said. Don’t jump the gun, AT&T urged. “Rather than hastily adopting a flawed mapping program,” the FCC should let broadband providers carry out broadband data collection duties imposed in June (CD June 16 p6), weigh suggestions from Connected Nation and others and then seek comment on a “fully formed” mapping proposal, AT&T said. Congress never told the FCC to map, the NCTA said. “Congress has not yet determined whether the Commission is the federal agency that is best suited to be responsible,” it said. “If the [FCC] moves forward without waiting for Congress, it should recognize that mapping efforts entail significant costs and it should avoid imposing unnecessary or duplicative requirements on broadband providers.”

NATOA “strongly supports” creation of a “publicly available, highly detailed interactive” map using FCC- gathered data, it said. The agency should offer electronic and paper versions, it said. The electronic version should let users zoom in on a census tract, see which providers offer service and get all “relevant” information on price, speed and access, it said. The American Library Association gave enthusiastic support to FCC mapping. The group said it promotes the E-rate program and site visits to low- connectivity states, but its efforts are “often stymied by the lack of good information regarding the availability of high-speed facilities.” The FCC should collect more than residential customer data by reaching out to libraries and other community institutions, the association said.

The FCC should avoid undermining existing mapping programs by Connected Nation and other public-private partnerships, said the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and several carriers. The Chamber, which in April announced a partnership with Connected Nation, endorsed a cautionary ex parte filing last week by the group (CD July 16 p8). Verizon also supported the letter, agreeing that the FCC should aid state-level efforts “by acting as a national clearinghouse for the maps they create and by helping to compile best practices for state-level mapping efforts.” An FCC program won’t work as well as public-private partnerships, Verizon said.

The FCC must “look beyond” Connected Nation, NATOA said. “That organization collects only a relatively limited amount of broadband penetration data, and it relies upon information [voluntarily] provided by self-interested providers.” Connected Nation and similar groups deserve praise for “stepping in to fill a gap” the FCC left, but it’s time for the FCC to “at last step forward,” it said. The Communications Workers of America agreed. “We are concerned that failure to establish a federal program might leave serious gaps in our knowledge base, and hamper efforts to craft federal policies to address the serious gaps in broadband deployment adoption in our nation.”

Requiring that providers file “address-by-address” data on availability would create an “undue” burden, said the Independent Telephone & Telecommunications Alliance. Many carriers don’t keep such data in forms easily used in mapping, ITTA said. “Resources directed toward discerning where broadband is not deployed could, ironically, sap the availability of resources to support actual broadband deployment in those areas.” The FCC should use data it already gets from the annual Form 497, recently changed to collect information by census tract, Qwest said.

Broadband providers raised confidentiality concerns with mapping. “If such information were made public, it undoubtedly would be used by competitors in developing their own strategies,” the NCTA said. The ITTA agreed but said information “might be shared within the limited confines of a non-disclosure agreement, and in a very limited setting.” The FCC should combine data for maps, “blurring the distinctive deployments of particular broadband providers,” Qwest said.

But consumers matter more than providers, NATOA said. “No legitimate or reasonable claims for ‘confidentiality’ can exist for information pertaining to availability, speed, price or other data that consumers can obtain simply by calling a broadband provider or accessing their Web site,” it said. Broadband providers may not use confidentiality claims “to withhold information that would undermine or reveal limitations in their offerings to consumers.”

Data should be “widely available,” said the American Library Association. “Keeping this information cloistered within the FCC or a small select group will do nothing to help the very organizations, like ALA, that are working to solve the connectivity crisis for their constituent groups.”

Wireless carriers asked the FCC to exempt them from mapping requirements, given the industry’s unique nature. “All of the large carriers have maps on their website showing their coverage and they have tools going down to the street level,” said a wireless industry source. “On one level we're already doing it… Carriers are concerned that if the FCC imposes a particular requirement what they've been doing will be have to be redone without a whole lot of benefit one way or another.”

“Standardization of mapping information, both within and across industry segments, would add unnecessary complexity to wireless carriers’ existing mapping efforts,” the CTIA said in its comments. “Wireless carriers offer maps on their websites that allow consumers to check coverage in the locations where they live, work and travel. These maps are likely the most current representations of carrier coverage.”

Wireless coverage is tough to assess, the CTIA said. Signal strength varies with “the propagation characteristics of the spectrum being utilized, network capacity, weather, topography, foliage, the number of customers using the cell or cell section, and whether a customer is in-building or in- car,” the group said. “Some of those factors -- network capacity, weather, foliage, etc. -- change seasonally, daily, and hourly.”

Reports on wireless coverage would be instantly out of date, given carrier networks’ rapid growth, while FCC reports are many months out of date, the CTIA said. “Such delay will make any Commission coverage reports extremely outdated and therefore misleading to consumers,” the CTIA said. “This information gap would confuse consumers presented with conflicting representations of wireless broadband coverage.”

Supplying wireless broadband data to the FCC would be costly, said wireless carrier Sprint Nextel. Sprint’s fears include “the cost of producing the information in a format different than the one the carrier uses, the cost for carriers that do not currently produce such maps or only produce them for certain broadband services, and maintaining the confidentiality of carriers’ highly competitive data.”

Satellite broadband providers shouldn’t have to give the FCC detailed data on that service’s availability since they offer service to the continental U.S., Hughes Network Services said. “Satellite providers’ deployment and subscribership trends are vastly different from those of terrestrial providers,” Hughes said. Address information is unnecessary since Hughes “can provide virtually nationwide coverage unlike terrestrial wireline and cable providers that are restrained by their ability to build physical, connection lines street by street,” Hughes said.

If the FCC proceeds with mapping, it should require all broadband providers to file data, Verizon said, “not just large broadband providers that currently allow potential customers to check broadband availability” on Web sites. And the FCC shouldn’t require providers to give the agency real- time access to databases used to predict availability, but instead should rely on a periodic “snapshot,” it said.

Keep the Agriculture Department’s Rural Utilities Service out of broadband mapping, Qwest said. “The RUS needs to maintain an almost myopic focus on ‘providing loans and guarantees to make broadband coverage possible in un-served rural areas,” it said. “Drawing the RUS into the national mapping realm will only detract” from that focus, it said.

The California Public Utilities Commission supports the FCC’s efforts to gather better data, it said. The FCC could play a unique role, the state agency said. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said states need better data to assess competition and weigh carrier petitions for forbearance. Accurate broadband data are critical to more widespread deployment and universal broadband is critical to the economy, the American Public Power Association and municipal utilities said in a filing authored by former FCC Commissioner Gloria Tristani. Carriers often overstate their confidentiality concerns, the power association said.

Congress Moving on Mapping

This Congress could act on broadband bills that posit nearly $300 million for data collection, but other legislative priorities loom. A broad coalition of industry, labor and rural interests endorsed action in a July 11 letter to Senate and House Commerce Committee leaders. Two similar bills could be conferenced and slated for a vote, if Congress is willing to spend the money, it said. Talks are ongoing, Hill sources said.

The House bill (HR-3919), passed in November, would direct the commission to define bandwidth tiers by data transmission speeds, with each tier required to support “qualitatively” different services and applications that the FCC would identify. The FCC would collect subscriber data for each five-digit ZIP code area, with NTIA maintaining an inventory map of service providers at the nine-digit level, census tract or functional equivalent. Providers could keep their information on tiers and services offerings private.

HR-3919 calls for $275 million in state grants to collect map data and developing local technology buildout plans. The leading Senate bill (S-1492), passed in the Commerce Committee in October, would put $240 million into state broadband grants. S-1492 would direct the commission to revise its Form 477 reporting requirements to enable collection of subscriber data. The bill would allow the commission to decide whether to track data using five or nine digit or census tract data. The commission could exempt providers from compliance if a company contends it costs too much to provide data.