USTelecom-Led Group Unveils Broadband Mapping Initiative; Pai Praises Effort
A USTelecom initiative aims to improve broadband data and mapping, starting with a pilot in Virginia and Missouri. It will use "modern-data analytics" to develop a "comprehensive database of all broadband serviceable locations in our two pilot states -- and a road map for a collaborative government-led effort to expand the system nationwide," said CEO Jonathan Spalter at an event Thursday. He said ITTA, the Wireless ISP Association, USTelecom members and others will participate. The coalition hopes the mapping effort will be "useful in the FCC’s quest to modernize its broadband data collection process, and supportive of other related federal and state initiatives," he said.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said that "we need to know where connectivity is, and just as important, where it is not," at the USTelecom event. He said Form 477 broadband data collection "is showing its age" and needs to be updated to make data more accurate, granular and standardized. "By testing new ideas on the ground, it is my hope that this pilot and similar initiatives will give the Commission and other stakeholders useful information," he said. "By improving our understanding of the connectivity gaps in our country, we can improve our ability to close those gaps."
The pilot will involve various companies of different sizes and technology, including AT&T, Consolidated Communications, CenturyLink, Frontier Communications, Riverstreet, TDS, Verizon and Windstream, Spalter said: "We will harness new digital resources, ranging from satellite imagery to digitized parcel and land attribute data to existing broadband provider address information." It will seek to create a "clean data set by conforming addresses, removing duplicates, cross-checking information with carrier-provided address lists and using managed crowdsourcing to review records for accuracy. The pilot will also test different methods," he said.
"Our current broadband maps lack sufficient and meaningful detail," said Thomas Whitehead, Windstream vice president-federal government affairs, in a statement. "Because we only report broadband deployment at a census block level, there is no generally available data demonstrating whether specific locations are served or unserved. We hope that once the FCC sees how incredible this pilot project is, it will adopt this same process going forward on a nationwide basis."
Current broadband data collection targeting census blocks isn't targeted enough, particularly in rural areas, where the blocks can be very large, Spalter said. The problem is compounded in rural areas where mailing addresses can sometimes be far away -- even miles -- from homes needing broadband service, said Frank Simone, AT&T vice president-federal regulatory, on panel. "We need to move beyond addresses to locations."
"The pilot will find and aggregate all geolocations in Missouri and Virginia, and create a ‘Broadband Serviceable Location Fabric’ that will then be used as a basis for carrier reporting, helping to identify locations with and without access to broadband," said USTelecom (background here). It will take four to six months, said an FAQ: "If adopted for use across the nation the comprehensive map will take 18 months to 2 years to develop." Even geocoding can produce "wildly" divergent results, depending on the parties doing the geocoding and their methods, said Nick Alexander, CenturyLink vice president-federal regulatory affairs. He said having a "single fabric" used by regulators and companies would be a "tremendously effective tool."
This will be a "living" product that can be updated continually, said Mike Jacobs, ITTA vice president-regulatory affairs. Simone said the parties will "weave together" various public and private databases, layer carrier data atop that, and have a "managed crowdsource phase" where consumers can provide input on serviceable locations that would be reviewed and added if validated.