USTelecom Reports to FCC on Location Fabric Broadband Mapping
USTelecom and its partners are hoping the results of the four-month location fabric broadband mapping pilot project it recently concluded in two states will be promising enough to convince the FCC to move forward with and pay for similar efforts nationwide, executives said during a webinar Tuesday on its findings. The nationwide initiative could take 12-15 months to complete and cost upward of $8.5 million to $11 million depending on the types of datasets used, said Jim Stegeman, CEO of CostQuest Associates, during Q&A after the presentation. He recommended the maps be updated once or twice a year thereafter to take into account new construction or structures that are torn down. USTelecom estimates annual costs of $3 million to $4 million for updates.
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Compiling broadband mapping data using location fabric seeks to address deficits in current data collection and help both the FCC and participants in its broadband subsidy programs get more-accurate information on broadband access and deployment (see 1906280059). An FCC NPRM seeks feedback on the best tools to update its Form 477 data collection (see 1908070009). Broadband access is currently measured at the census block level, but stakeholders agree the data's not granular enough. Polygon shapefiles track a broadband provider's footprint. Location fabric aims to detail every structure in the country that can be served by a broadband connection.
The USTelecom pilot drew data from parcel vendors to track the locations of pieces of land, assessor data to show how the land is used, and building footprints to help determine where serviceable homes and businesses could receive a terrestrial broadband connection. Detailed maps can help providers determine where the serviceable locations sit on a property, and whether a structure is a garage or a shed, for example, said Stegeman. He said the FCC should clarify what defines a serviceable location, especially on rural properties with multiple structures: Should they include only the farmhouse, or include the barn and the chicken coop? he asked. In urban settings, a single location could include multiple units in an apartment building, so that should be detailed on the map, too, he said.
The underlying data's accuracy plays a significant role in the resulting location fabric's accuracy, Stegeman said. He said the FCC should decide whether it can use proprietary data sets for the mapping project, which would lessen the amount of visual verification the mapping developers would need to do later. Accurate maps are critical to bidders in rural broadband auctions because costs can rise significantly when the underlying data is wrong and structures thought of as serviceable locations are either nonexistent or are outside the designated census block by a matter of meters.
"We think this is the pathway to significantly improved broadband reporting," said Mike Saperstein, USTelecom vice president-policy and advocacy: "With this comes the opportunity for targeted funding for multiple broadband programs," including at the state level or through other federal programs, such as those of the Agriculture Department.
USTelecom anticipates the FCC would pay for a nationwide location fabric, said Lynn Follensbee, vice president-policy and advocacy, during the Q&A. The group said it delivered findings to the agency Tuesday "demonstrating the capability to geocode and map every home and business able to receive broadband" in Virginia and Missouri.
"We welcome the work of the Broadband Mapping Initiative and look forward to reviewing the results in depth," an FCC spokesperson emailed Tuesday. "Preliminary results affirm the decision of the Commission to adopt the Digital Opportunity Data Collection earlier this month, which will result in more accurate and granular broadband maps by requiring providers to submit coverage polygons and subjecting those submissions to independent verification, including by crowd-sourcing. We will also take these results into account in evaluating the Commission's proposal to collect additional data about broadband-serviceable locations."
"There is widespread recognition that current broadband maps are incomplete and inaccurate," said Genny Morelli, ITTA president, in a statement. "Now that the success of the pilot program has shown that an accurate and comprehensive nationwide broadband map can be created in a timely and economically reasonable manner, it is time for federal policymakers to embrace the consortium's mapping solution which will ensure that federal support is properly targeted to bring broadband to unserved American consumers."
As many as 38 percent of total rural locations in census blocks reported as served under the current FCC form 477 data were found unserved in findings from the broadband mapping pilot (although the data did not fully incorporate homes served by cable or satellite providers). Also, 48 percent of the location counts in census blocks in rural Missouri and Virginia were wrong, "often significantly wrong," USTelecom said.