FCC Broadband Availability Data Blasted As Bogus, 'Shameful'

The FCC's recent broadband availability report is being blasted for being completely inaccurate. We've long noted that the broadband industry consistently fights against accurate broadband availability and price mapping, since highlighting the sector's failures might just encourage somebody to do something about it. In particular, large ISPs are afraid of government policies that could spur competition to markets, in turn driving down revenues.

That's why ISPs like Verizon, AT&T and Comcast consistently fight efforts to raise the standard definition of broadband , which most recently helped highlight how two-thirds of Americans can only gain speeds of 25 Mbps from just one ISP.

It's also why they've consistently fought the release of pricing data on a per market basis, resulting in a $300 million national broadband map that fails to mention prices whatsoever. And it's why ISP lobbyists routinely fight against efforts to create a more accurate picture of where broadband is really available.

The folks that actually live in the rural markets continue to find the FCC's failures on this front problematic. For example, West Virginia residents were surprised to learn that according to the FCC's latest broadband availability data, broadband was available to "100%" of at least seven state counties, despite massive and longstanding broadband deployment and competition shortcomings in those areas.

Rob Hinton, chairman of the West Virginia Broadband Enhancement Council, tells the Charleston Gazette Mail the FCC's projections border on the fantastical, and are actually harming efforts to bring better broadband to these underserved areas. According to Hinton, the FCC's numbers are "not even close to being correct."

"To me, this goes beyond having inaccuracies," Hinton said. "It’s just disappointing. That’s all it is. At what point next year are they going to say West Virginia has 100 percent coverage?"

"It’s shameful," Hinton added. "It’s just disappointing that moving forward, this is the kind of data that will dictate where we can invest infrastructure dollars."

Again, this isn't due to government incompetence, but design. ISPs routinely refuse to turn over more accurate pricing and availability data, arguing that it harms their ability to compete. In reality, these ISPs know they hold a monopoly or duopoly across vast swaths of America, and aren't keen at having that fact highlighted by the government. This is, unsurprisingly, why ISPs often lobby for protectionist state laws preventing individual towns and cities from deploying their own broadband, even in areas where incumbent ISPs refuse to.

And while more accurate data collection efforts occasionally pop up at the FCC (like last year's FCC attempt to move from census tract data to more specific address-based measurements), ISP lobbyists routinely fight such efforts tooth and nail, arguing that providing more accurate availability data would be too expensive and burdensome for broadband providers.

For example, in a recent filing with the FCC (pdf), Verizon lawyers argued that "such proposals would impose enormous costs on fixed broadband providers without providing any real benefit to the Commission or the public.” A filing by the NTCA (pdf), the cable industry's biggest lobbying group, similarly argued that "every proposal to collect more or different data imposes costs on broadband providers."

But it's not just the added cost of this change (likely to be relatively modest in context of their revenues) that bothers ISPs. ISPs like Verizon have been under fire for years for failing to uniformly upgrade their networks , or for taking billions in taxpayer subsidies to deploy fiber upgrades that were either half completed or not completed at all. The existing, more vague census-block based system makes it easier to obfuscate ISP deployment shortcomings. Improved data collection would better highlight deployment gaps, and boost public pressure on giant ISPs to do something about it.