[1st-mile-nm] Broadband Data Improvement Act

[Tom Johnson]

>From ars technica
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070719-broadband-data-improvement-act-clears-senate-commerce-committee.html
Broadband Data Improvement Act clears Senate Commerce
Committee<http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070719-broadband-data-improvement-act-clears-senate-commerce-committee.html>

By Nate Anderson <http://arstechnica.com/authors.ars/Nate+Anderson> |
Published: July 19, 2007 - 07:53PM CT

Congress has at last taken an interest in a seemingly arcane debate over the
metrics used by the FCC and is moving on the issue with surprising speed.
For years, geeks have criticized the way that the agency collects broadband
information, focusing especially on the fact that the bar for "broadband" is
set laughably low (200Kbps) and that if one person in a ZIP code has access,
then the entire ZIP code is considered "served." The Broadband Data
Improvement Act<http://commerce.senate.gov/public/_files/BROADBANDDATAIMPR1.pdf>(PDF)
hopes to remedy
some of these problems<http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070525-new-senate-bill-pushes-for-second-generation-broadband.html>,
and it has just unanimously cleared the Senate Commerce Committee.
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 The bill, should it pass the broader Senate and House, would force the FCC
to make a couple of major changes to the way that it puts together its
broadband information. For one thing, the agency is directed to come up with
a new metric for "second generation broadband," defined as being the minimum
speed needed to stream full-motion, high-definition video.

The FCC also needs to get far more granular with its reporting, switching
from the use of simple ZIP codes to the far more specific ZIP+4 codes. That
may still not appease everyone, but it will greatly increase the quality of
data from large, yet sparsely populated areas that might share a zip, but
not the full ZIP+4. Arguably, it is these areas that need study the most.

The idea is that, unless policymakers have good data to work with, they are
likely to end up making poor policy. Passage of the bill out of committee
has already drawn praise from Free Press, one of the groups that has lobbied
hard for the bill and has appeared at committee hearings where it was
discussed.

Free Press policy director Ben Scott said, "For too long, policymakers have
been forced to operate in the dark, relying on misleading and sometimes
inaccurate information about the U.S. broadband market. By providing
detailed information about the deployment, availability and use of broadband
services in this country, the Broadband Data Improvement Act promises to
bring us one step closer to our shared goal of universal, affordable
broadband."

-- tj
==========================================
J. T. Johnson
Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA
www.analyticjournalism.com
505.577.6482(c)                                 505.473.9646(h)
http://www.jtjohnson.com                 tom at jtjohnson.us

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the
existing model obsolete."
                                                   -- Buckminster Fuller
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