CCA Seeks Changes to How FCC Collects Form 477 Data
The Competitive Carriers Association said it flagged some potential problems with how the FCC collects Form 477 data, in a meeting with Chief Jon Wilkins and other Wireless Bureau staff. The data are key to the FCC’s look at the…
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need for a new mobility fund (see 1609300057), Wilkins said recently. “While the Commission has portrayed the analysis derived from the Form 477 data as resting on a ‘uniform nationwide collection methodology,’ the agency permits each carrier to choose the propagation model, loss assumptions and performance levels necessary to determine mobile broadband coverage,” CCA said in a filing in docket 12-264. “Even small variations in the model used or the assumptions on which the model relies can result in dramatic changes in predicted coverage.” While Form 477 indicates carriers “should” use a common resolution of 100 meters, “carriers appear to have employed a wide variety of resolutions in presenting their mobile broadband coverage data to the Commission,” said the group. “Low-resolution images are problematic because they appear crisp at a national level, but reveal pixelation and other flaws that distort results at the state and county level where mobile broadband coverage data is most relevant.” Representatives of U.S. Cellular and ClearSky Technologies also attended.