AT&T Provided FCC Bunk Broadband Availability Data Across 20 States
from the driving-blind dept
We've noted repeatedly that despite a lot of talk from U.S. leaders and regulators about the "digital divide," the United States doesn't actually know where broadband is available. Historically the FCC has simply trusted major ISPs -- with a vested interest in downplaying coverage and competition gaps -- to tell the truth. The FCC's methodology has also long been flawed, considering an entire area to be connected if just one home in a census tract has service. The results are ugly: the FCC's $350 million broadband availability map all but hallucinates broadband availability and speed (try it yourself).
As pressure mounts on the agency to finally improve its broadband mapping, the scope of the problem continues to come into focus. Like this week, when AT&T was forced to acknowledge that the company provided the FCC with inaccurate broadband availability data across 20 states, impacting some 3,600 census blocks:
"AT&T disclosed the error to the FCC in a filing a week ago. The filing provides "a list of census blocks AT&T previously reported as having broadband deployment at speeds of at least 25Mbps downstream/3 Mbps upstream that AT&T has removed from its Form 477 reports." The 78-page list includes nearly 3,600 blocks."
You'll recall that last year, Ajit Pai tried to claim that his "deregulatory agenda" (read: gutting oversight of an uncompetitive and hugely unpopular business sector) resulted in some amazing broadband expansion. Only later was it revealed that much of this growth either was triggered by things Pai's FCC had nothing to do with (like fiber build-out requirements affixed to AT&T's 2015 merger with DirecTV by the previous FCC), or a broadband mapping blunder by a small provider by the name of BarrierFree, which overstated its footprint to the FCC by a cool 1.5 million locations.
AT&T insists this latest error was caused by a "software bug," and while relatively small in the scope of AT&T's overall service area, consumer groups are a little curious how it could have gone unnoticed for the better part of two years:
"Aside from one even bigger error by an ISP called BarrierFree last year, Turner said he hasn't "seen any other ISP reporting error like this before" and that "it is curious that the [AT&T] error may have gone unnoticed for 2-plus years."..."While relatively small errors like this don't end up changing conclusions about national trends, it certainly can impact the FCC decisions about where to spend—and where to not spend—scarce subsidy funds," Turner said. "AT&T should be quite a bit more forthcoming about the exact nature of this error and how it discovered it, so that other ISPs can be sure they're not making similar errors."
While there's no evidence of intentional under-reporting by AT&T, the timing is curious all the same.
After several decades of complaints, pressure has mounted on the FCC and Congress to actually do something as states vie for additional deployment subsidies. That culminated in the recent passage of the Broadband Deployment Accuracy and Technological Availability (DATA) Act, which mandates the FCC to use more accurate geolocation and crowdsourced data to create more accurate maps and actually verify where broadband's available before doling out billions in subsidies or issuing policy (fancy that!).
It will take years to complete, the FCC has warned they can't afford to finish it without more funding, and the industry, which has spent years lobbying against mapping improvements for obvious reasons, could still find ways to either scuttle the effort or make access to the data difficult. Still, baby steps and all that. There are at least indications that the "what US broadband competition problem?" telecom policy set finally realizes this is a problem that needs fixing, even if truly better broadband maps are still several years away.
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Filed Under: broadband, broadband map, data, digital divide, fake data, fcc
Companies: at&t
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Funny that...
'Software glitch' happens which results in more homes listed as connected than actually are, and it takes them two years to 'discover' it. Why do I get the feeling that a similar glitch that resulted in less homes listed as connected would have been caught almost immediately?
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Two years plus?
How about giving the project to a number of universities instead. The telcos can only bribe ... er .. subsidize so many colleges and universities. There are bound to be a few that get missed.
Scarier yet an offshore university could independently do this and publish the results.
Hmm wonder if any British or German IT grad students are looking for a thesis project?
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Does AT&T actually stand for American Telephone and Tracfone?
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Funny that...
Why do I get the feeling?
If someone approaches a compass with a strong magnet, the flux of the compass needle can be reversed. Our collective moral compass has been defeated.
A square mile of petroleum mining in the heart of this city shut down last night, no one will buy their geologic methane, fracked 'Natural Gas', the cost is to great. Three minutes after midnight, a sharp earthquake occurred 2000 feet from the gas field and 7 miles down, jolting the floor of this house. All other quakes in this area for decades have been rolling waves. Adjustment time.
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Re: Funny that...
... the hell?
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Re: Re: Funny that...
It's just a feeling
https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/ci39400304/executive
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Re: Re: Re: Funny that...
I'm not a fan of fracking, but this is an article about broadband availability.
What's the link between the two subjects?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Funny that...
Well, it could be that 5G towers are emitting microwaves that not only affect the magnetic fields but are also stimulating the harmonic frequencies of the earth in the areas being fracked thus resulting in an earthquake that one can monitor with their cell phone blue tooth receiver. Download the app today
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Funny that...
You are insane, your ideas are insane and you should feel bad.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Funny that...
The context of Techdirt is that doing the 'right thing' is not news, unless it's unexpected or accidental in our present moral "space"(to paraphrase our Governor).
Shutting down a square mile of toxic fracking yesterday, and the 'accidental' earthquake, i saw as a parallel to AT&T's accidental 'right thing'. Sorry i went A Bridge Too Far.
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Gee you fib to the feds & you end up in jail for life + cancer...
Unless you are a corporate sponsor.
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So, I just want to know. All of the big telecom companies campaigned very, very hard to be NOT classified as a public utility. Why then, do we have to give them subsidies? Let them build their own networks and where they don't provide service, let somebody else do it. Just stop giving them the free money for executive compensation and actually start letting them do it themselves. THEY ARE NOT A UTILITY. Just like they wanted. STOP GIVING THEM MONEY LIKE THEY ARE ONE.
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Missing the *bigger* picture.
I think people are missing the bigger picture. It is currently in AT&T's best interest to fess up to this mistake. AT&T is not worried about Pai or Congress suddenly growing a spine.
If those census blocks are already covered by AT&T, then it can't get any money to serve them from the latest government giveaway. Now that they've told to FCC that they are really under/un-served they can get more money to not serve them.
See, win/win for AT&T at least.
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Re: Missing the *bigger* picture.
At least a part of the issue is will any of the broadband providers (including AT&T) actually spend the money on its intended purpose? They haven't in the past which raises the question as to why they are being given more?
5G is one excuse, and not a very good one as it would take 5-10 times more installations than 4G, but wireless is one of the excuses for broadband to not upgrade their networks last mile installations.
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Why has nobody stated the obvious?
I'm pretty sure that there is no coincidence, and that all the false reported blocks they claim have been connected to for the past two years are in NO WAY only the poor minority neighborhoods that actually have NO INTERNET access, I'm sure there were some rich-white neighborhood falsely reported as well... (you know the Democratic ones...).
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