[1st-mile-nm] FCC's Data Overstate Access on Tribal Lands

[Richard Lowenberg]

 From the Benton list:

FCC's Data Overstate Access on Tribal Lands

Mark Goldstein  |  Research  |  Government Accountability Office

The Government Accountability Office was asked to review the Federal 
Communications Commission's efforts to collect broadband data for tribal 
lands. This report examines the extent to which: (1) FCC's approach to 
collecting broadband data accurately captures broadband access on tribal 
lands and (2) FCC obtains tribal input on the data.

The FCC collects data on broadband availability; these data capture 
where providers may have broadband infrastructure. However, FCC 
considers broadband to be “available” for an entire census block if the 
provider could serve at least one location in the census block. This 
leads to overstatements of service for specific locations like tribal 
lands. FCC, tribal stakeholders, and providers have noted that this 
approach leads to overstatements of broadband availability. Because FCC 
uses these data to measure broadband access, it also overstates 
broadband access—the ability to obtain service—on tribal lands. 
Additionally, FCC does not collect information on several factors—such 
as affordability, quality, and denials of service—that FCC and tribal 
stakeholders stated can affect the extent to which Americans living on 
tribal lands can access broadband services. FCC provides broadband 
funding for unserved areas based on its broadband data. Overstatements 
of access lim it FCC’s and tribal stakeholders’ abilities to target 
broadband funding to such areas.

GAO is making three recommendations to FCC, to which the agency agreed:

The Chairman of the FCC should develop and implement methods--such as a 
targeted data collection--for collecting and reporting accurate and 
complete data on broadband access specific to tribal lands.
The Chairman of the FCC should develop a formal process to obtain tribal 
input on the accuracy of provider-submitted broadband data that includes 
outreach and technical assistance to help tribes participate in the 
process.
The Chairman of the FCC should obtain feedback from tribal stakeholders 
and providers on the effectiveness of FCC's 2012 statement to providers 
on how to fulfill their tribal engagement requirements to determine 
whether FCC needs to clarify the agency's tribal engagement statement.



---------------------------------------------------------------
Richard Lowenberg, Executive Director
1st-Mile Institute     505-603-5200
Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504,
rl at 1st-mile.org     www.1st-mile.org
---------------------------------------------------------------
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: GAO-694386.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 8029852 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://www2.dcn.org/pipermail/1st-mile-nm/attachments/20180910/cc2b87c8/attachment.pdf>