The Federal Communications Commission took steps to improve outdated broadband data collection, an issue of concern to wireless carriers. An issue that’s tied to the highly charged, largely partisan debate over the Bush administration’s approach to expanding the reach of high-speed Internet access at a time when a major international ranking of broadband penetration shows the United States steadily losing ground to other countries.
In addition to collecting detailed subscribership information at a local level and better cataloguing broadband service speed, the FCC agreed to expand the number of reporting speed tiers to capture more precise information about upload and download broadband speeds in the marketplace; require broadband providers to report numbers of broadband subscribers by census tract, broken down by speed tier and technology type; and improve the accuracy of information the commission gathers about mobile wireless broadband deployment.
Information will be gathered by federal regulators for the following tiers of service: first generation data: 200 kilobits per second up to 768kbps; basic broadband: 768kbps to 1.5 megabits per second; 1.5 Mbps to 3 Mbps; 3 Mbps to 6 Mbps; and 6 Mbps and above.
The mobile-phone industry lobbied against what it fears will be unnecessarily burdensome reporting requirements that unwittingly undermine homeland security by making public precise geographic location of wireless communications facilities. The FCC will seek comment on distinguishing among different types of wireless services, delineating those that allow access to the full Internet from others that offer only access to content selected by the carrier or content optimized for mobile phones.
Wireless broadband access is growing, but barely registers on the radar in a market dominated by Bell telephone and cable TV giants. National cellular association CTIA said it would defer comment on the FCC ruling until it can study it further.
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, a Republican, was under intense pressure to act in light of criticism from Democrats who control Congress and a Government Accounting Office report in 2006 that found shortcomings in the FCC’s methodology for measuring the extent of broadband deployment and access.
“Since becoming chairman, I have made broadband deployment the commission’s top priority,” stated Martin. “Broadband technology is a key driver of economic growth. The ability to share increasing amounts of information at greater and greater speeds increases productivity, facilitates interstate commerce and helps drive innovation. But perhaps most important, broadband has the potential to affect almost every aspect of our lives – from where we work, to how we educate our children and increasingly to the way healthcare is delivered.”
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development lists the U.S. as the largest broadband market among the 30 nations it groups together. Martin highlighted that point in outlining actions taken by the FCC to move the U.S. closer to President Bush’s unfulfilled goal of achieving universal, affordable broadband access by 2007.
OECD, based in France, also ranks the U.S. 15th in broadband penetration among its members, which Democrats frequently hold out as Exhibit A in criticizing the administration’s lacking of a coherent broadband strategy.
Dems blast agency report
Indeed, the FCC’s two Democratic members – Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein – blasted a new agency report showing that broadband services are being made available “to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion.” The FCC broadband report, required by the 1996 telecom act, was the fifth issued to date.
“It’s no secret to most people here that I have not been leading the cheers for previous editions of our Section 706 reports,” said Copps. “Based on a paucity of data – mostly primitive and generally unhelpful – these reports claim progress that simply did not reflect reality. The data lacked a plausible definition of broadband, employed stunningly meaningless ZIP code measurements concerning its geographic distribution, ignored the prices people paid for broadband completely, and for years failed to look at what other countries were doing to get broadband deployed to their people.”
Copps added: “I think we can get there, but we’re going to have to do more than just issue self-satisfied reports and set high-minded goals. Until universal, affordable broadband is a top priority for the country, no report will be able to mask the work still yet to be done.”
Adelstein was equally acerbic in his appraisal of the latest FCC broadband report.
“The report unconvincingly attempts to dismiss the international broadband penetration rankings,” he said. “The fact is the U.S. has dropped year-after-year. This downward trend and the lack of broadband value illustrate the sobering point that when it comes to giving our citizens affordable access to state-of the-art communications, the U.S. has fallen behind its global competitors. We do not wrestle with the question of broadband value, or price per megabit, for which our citizens pay far more than those in many other countries. . This is more than a public-relations problem; it’s a major productivity problem.”
Bush administration officials insist the OECD’s broadband penetration scorecard does not account for U.S. progress on broadband deployment and accessibility. They argue market-based economic and regulatory policies have created a nurturing environment for broadband expansion in this country.
Public Knowledge, a public-interest advocacy group, said it was disappointed broadband information about the residential market will not separated from the commercial and that information on pricing will be subject to a further proceeding at the FCC.
“While it contemplates its new data collection, the commission should also consider making its information available to the public on a more frequent basis than the twice-yearly reports it issues now,” said Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge.
