FCC Precision Ag Task Force Raises Mapping Concerns
Members of the FCC Precision Ag Task Force raised concerns Tuesday about how the commission's next iteration of the broadband availability map will treat agricultural lands. Meeting virtually, the task force also heard updates from working group leaders and discussed the timing of its reports amid efforts to pass the 2023 farm bill (see 2212020059).
FCC staffers are "working very, very hard" on processing challenges to the broadband map's availability data, Broadband Data Task Force Senior Counsel Kirk Burgee told the task force, saying more than 4 million challenges have been processed to date. "A large number of challenges have been resolved in the course of the process without the need to go to adjudication," Burgee said. An updated map will be released "sometime this spring" to reflect the challenges and will include more than one million additional broadband services, he said.
Coverage and reliability on agricultural lands is "the key issue" now, said Heather Hampton-Knodle, Knodle Farms vice president-secretary. "As we move into anything requiring artificial intelligence, that bandwidth will become increasingly the issue when you look at data," said Hampton-Knodle, who chairs the connectivity demand working group. The FCC's maps "will be extremely valuable" for economic and community development, she said, noting USDA should play a role in mapping farm fields.
The FCC should "adopt a standardized set of key performance indicators for all parties engaged in broadband data collection" and "utilize third-party software and data sets" to develop its map, said data mapping WG Chair Sreekala Bajwa, Montana State University College of Agriculture and Montana Agricultural Experiment Station's vice president-dean and director. The WG raised concerns about the current map lacking "outside verification data from existing broadband service providers or any other data source," Bajwa said, saying the FCC should "simplify" the challenge process to ensure farmers are able to participate. Bajwa said the WG also recommended increased collaboration across federal, state and tribal agencies because "different groups are collecting data" that's not currently reflected in the map.
The accelerating broadband deployment WG urged all federal agencies to follow the same definition of broadband and standards for funding decisions that are updated on a biannual basis, said Vice Chair Haran Rashes, ExteNet Systems assistant general counsel-regulatory affairs. The FCC should also revisit its satellite broadband coverage requirements for non-geostationary orbiting satellite systems and implement geographic buildout requirements for spectrum-based licenses, Rashes said. "Let's have a step-by-step playbook for the creation and operation of rural community-based nonprofit solutions, modeled after the NTIA playbook for broadband funding nationwide," he said.
The current and future connectivity demand WG is aiming to present a draft report to the full task force by July 11, Hampton-Knodle said. "We may need to double down and get more specific on low band language" and "a statement needs to be generated on why we need a national roaming standard," she said. The encouraging high-quality jobs WG chair, Paige Wireless President Julie Bushell, said the group's current focus is on cybersecurity and data privacy standards.
"We really do want to get to a point where we have some standards and potentially some means of additional education to farmers around what aggregate data means" for them, Bushell said. She noted the WG will also focus on the Chips Act's language on precision ag wireless networks. The group is still working on its recommendations for metrics the FCC could use to measure or track products and developing a road map for precision ag adoption, she said.