Commissioners Adopt New Broadband Mapping Approach but With Reservations

Despite the criticisms, O’Rielly voted to approve, as did Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioner Brendan Carr. Democrats Geoffrey Starks and Jessica Rosenworcel partially dissented. Pai said USAC's role "makes sense" given how universal service-centric the data collection will be and how USAC administers the four universal service programs. Carr said the FCC's use of crowdsourcing as a way to verify data the carriers submit ended up "more robust" than in the original draft.

Wireline Bureau Chief Kris Monteith said there were changes from the draft item, based on commissioner input and ex parte meetings. She didn't elaborate. The approved item language wasn't released Thursday.

O'Rielly said there also are red flags about the questionable levels of transparency for USAC operations. "It can seem like a black hole," he said, adding he hopes for USAC revisions. He said USAC should use the new mapping to administer all universal service programs that provide support for broadband deployment, not just the high-cost program.

There also are concerns about the use of crowdsourcing to verify carrier-submitted data, O'Rielly said. He said complaints can't be accepted "willy-nilly" without knowing if they're tied to actual broadband service or due to unrelated issues.

Rosenworcel said big details “go unaddressed,” such as explicitly stating the fate of the national broadband map. She said she's concerned the order will result in killing off the national broadband map in favor of “an impossible to find webpage” maintained by USAC. Echoing O'Rielly, she questioned the logic of handing USAC a data collection responsibility beyond the scope of anything it previously has done and questioned its accountability to the public. She said it would be "an embarrassment" to the FCC if the agency has to rethink the USAC approach in coming months.

Calling the item “a nudge in the right direction," Starks also joined O'Rielly in raising concerns about the FCC's delegation of so many responsibilities to USAC. He said it also needs more detail about such issues as timelines and accountability that would guarantee prompt improvements of data or mapping. He said as long as Form 477 is key in the FCC's policymaking, the FCC needs to tackle its "most glaring problems." He said he suggested improvements to Pai that weren't included, but several questions about the format and technical specifications for data service providers will file were incorporated into the Further NPRM.

Digital divide funding needs to be properly targeted, and the FCC should "move rapidly" on creating a national database of geocoded locations as the cornerstone to new broadband maps, with that level of detail "the key to truly closing the digital divide," AT&T said.

The FCC took "a good first step" by tackling the issue of overstating deployment in rural areas and Free Press is "cautiously optimistic" about the changes improving accuracy, it said. It "wisely recognizers the need to show this improvement before the agency scraps the previous reporting system." It said keeping the existing methodology ensures researchers and advocates will be able to do longitudinal monitoring of deployment in low-income communities. But study of broadband affordability, quality and competition requires pricing information and related Form 477 subscriber data, it said.

Some critics complained about the lack of consumer pricing data (see 1907190029), and Rosenworcel echoed that. Pai after the meeting said the FCC is trying to figure out where broadband is available, and he will "leave it others to figure out what we would like to collect data on." The primary digital divide issue is availability, with pricing an important but different aspect, O'Rielly said after the meeting. Once there's universal availability, "I'll turn to the price issue," he said, adding he didn't support "going a different direction" on data collection.