Shitty U.S. Broadband Maps Are A Feature, Not A Bug

from the can't-fix-a-problem-you-refuse-to-measure dept

We've noted a few times now how the U.S. is preparing to spend $42 billion to shore up broadband access, despite not actually knowing where broadband is or isn't available. It's part of a multi-decade effort to fix mediocre broadband without using real world data to actually do it, and without acknowledging that the primary reason U.S. is mired in mediocrity is thanks to regional monopolization and the vast state and federal corruption that protects it.

While the press and punditry haven't yet found the courage to directly acknowledge that latter point (you might upset a campaign contributor, story source, or advertiser), the infrastructure bill has drawn new attention to the fact that it's 2022 and we still can't accurately measure U.S. broadband availability and speeds.

The Washington Post recently did a good story on this problem, and this week Protocol joined the rush with a good piece of its own.

Both stories note how, for years, the FCC determined a census block "served" with broadband if an incumbent ISP simply claimed it could service one home in that census block. Both correctly note that we're finally seeing a bipartisan push to do something as states rush to the trough of both COVID relief and infrastructure broadband funds. Both correctly note that mapping methodology fixes are coming, but probably too late for the massive funding coming down the lane. And both stories ably document the frustration of local community leaders and reformers who are trying to fix a problem with a blindfold on:

"It just shows how woefully inadequate the current broadband maps are; yet, we continue to keep relying on them,” said Jonathan Schwantes, senior policy counsel for Consumer Reports, who is familiar with the area.

“The original sin here is the FCC data,” said Peggy Schaffer, executive director of ConnectME, a state body that put together an application for grant money to build out broadband in seven areas of the state, including Deer Isle. “The further original sin is any assumption that the FCC data, given what they ask providers for, is accurate, because it’s not."

But what continues to be weird about the mainstream press' coverage of this subject is they generally don't like talking about why it's 2022 and U.S. broadband maps still suck outside of some vague nods toward government incompetence.

They don't really want to discuss how this rose-colored vision of U.S. broadband access and affordability is the active result of telecom lobbying. They don't really talk much about how telecom giants have routinely scuttled efforts at better maps. They don't really discuss how incumbents have lobbied to foster apathy on this subject, because bad maps help obfuscate the real-world harm of regional monopolization, limited competition, and telecom regulatory capture.

U.S. broadband isn't utterly mediocre in 2022 due to funding or technological limitations. State and federal subsides have rained from the sky for decades, and fiber and assorted wireless technologies only get cheaper and faster to deploy.

U.S. broadband remains mediocre in 2022 because for literally the better part of a generation we've let regional monopolies like Comcast, AT&T, Frontier, Verizon, and Charter dictate most, if not all, state and federal policy proposals. That has generally included blanket neutering of most consumer protections, repeated rubber stamping of harmful mergers, and undermining telecom oversight at every opportunity. The end result is obvious to anybody who has been on hold with Comcast customer support, or tried to get their local phone company to upgrade DSL lines with top speeds straight out of 2003.

Yet when a major news outlet, regulator, or politician discusses U.S. telecom and broadband policy, corruption, monopolization, and the multi-decade assault on healthy competition are routinely never even mentioned. The problem is usually framed in vague, nebulous ways with terms like the "digital divide." Shitty, spotty, expensive U.S. broadband is generally discussed as something that just happened one day, completely free of any causation. Bad maps and bad data are a cornerstone of this denialism. Throwing money at the problem without understanding where that money is going is also enabled by bad mapping.

Accurate broadband maps would only highlight how mindless consolidation, mergermania, and deregulation haven't delivered the Utopian future telecom lobbyists and their think tank associates have been pushing for the better part of several decades. Accurate broadband maps would only incentivize policymakers to singularly focus on policies that drive more competition to market. Accurate broadband maps would only serve to highlight how heavily monopolized and broken the U.S. telecom market is. Accurate data might actually prompt folks to intelligently fix the problem with data-driven solutions, and given how profitable U.S. telecom monopolization is, we certainly wouldn't want that.

Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: broadband, broadband map, competition, failures, fcc


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 6 Jan 2022 @ 6:47am

    regardless of any and all other issues that have hampered decent broadband being deployed anywhere in the USA, until the main issue is fixed, the one of corrupt politicians being totally exposed and actually sued, coupled with the telecom lobbyists, allowed to bring whatever weight to bear that the incumbent companies want so as to be able to continue in the same piss-poor vein, grabbing millions in tax payer funds for fuck all in return, getting the same, no matter how often 'MAPS' are talked about, NOTHING IS GONNA CHANGE!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Annonymouse, 6 Jan 2022 @ 8:32am

    This may be considered a totally crazy idea.

    Have a third party with no vested interests outside of totally embarrassing the administration to discretely do the mapping. Who, you may ask would fit those criteria. Pretty much any post secondary institution outside the states not influenced by the US broadband cartels.

    I think a bit of creativity with data mining to cross reference network addresses to geolocations and an automated survey mapping out node capability is doable by any post graduate if given the time and resources to do so.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 6 Jan 2022 @ 9:22am

    Remember when some politician (or maybe it was a lobbyist) claimed that someone who was complaining about broadband had 17 "broadband" ISPs to choose from? But when you actually looked at them they were a mix of mostly satellite and cellular services with only a single fixed line DSL (and shitty DSL at that) that actually serviced the customer. I'm pretty sure that information came from the FCC's shitty map.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. icon
    Designerfx (profile), 6 Jan 2022 @ 10:01am

    The why here isn't a question

    It's super simple and dead obvious why news agencies are scared to report on the inefficiencies:
    they're afraid of the impact of pissing off the ISP's as the ISP's have continued to grow (and in many cases, control many media sources). So they do nothing because of course they won't.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. icon
    ECA (profile), 6 Jan 2022 @ 1:02pm

    Re:

    Better idea.
    How about we Turn off the internet to the Wash DC area, as well as to Each States Representatives HOME TOWN, until the Whole state they live in has Full coverage?
    At least limit them to the Minimum Suggested for high speed.

    The problem is more that 'WE the people', really dont get a say in any of this.
    Even when we pay these corps for TV, cable, Sat, Cellphones, internet and a few other things.
    And most of these corps dont HOLD all the servers used to create the net.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 6 Jan 2022 @ 10:26pm

    Richard Bennett didn't injure his knees to get good broadband coverage, after all.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. icon
    PaulT (profile), 6 Jan 2022 @ 11:52pm

    Re: Re:

    "How about we Turn off the internet to the Wash DC area, as well as to Each States Representatives HOME TOWN, until the Whole state they live in has Full coverage?"

    Yes, destroy the livelihoods of millions to get your pet issue addressed. I'm sure that will not be a problem at all...

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 7 Jan 2022 @ 1:08pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    Hundreds of millions of people are effected by this every day in the US.

    At what point is destroying the livelyhoods of millions the least worst option?

    What pet issue is worth spending billions on lobbying over? Also, congratulations on not being negatively effected, as far as you know.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. icon
    PaulT (profile), 7 Jan 2022 @ 1:24pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    "Hundreds of millions of people are effected by this every day in the US.

    At what point is destroying the livelyhoods of millions the least worst option?"

    I'm not sure what your point is here. There's a lot of people with inferior internet access, but literally blocking entire cities and states from accessing the internet as ECA suggested is obviously not the answer.

    "Also, congratulations on not being negatively effected, as far as you know."

    I don't live in the US but I know that I'm subjected to a market that has the results of the effective and widespread regulation that's being opposed in the US.

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.