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FCC Admits Mistakes In Measuring Broadband Competition
techdirtfeed writes "For years, plenty of folks (including the Government Accountability Office) have been pointing out that the way the FCC measures broadband competition is very flawed. It simply assumes that if a single household in a zip code is offered broadband by provider A, then every household in that zip code can get broadband from provider A. See the problem? For some reason the FCC still hasn't changed its ways, but at least they're starting to realize the problem. They're now saying they need to change the way they measure competition. Commissioner Michael Copps points out: 'Our statistical methodology seems almost calculated to obscure just how far our country is falling behind many other industrialized nations in broadband availability, adoption, speed and price.'"
So, that would make them the most naive member of the FCC they had? or is she just good at acting surprised...
I look forward to the restructuring of the FCC after this where they purge the evil and the misguided statistics....because i'm absolutely sure that will happen.
and no, i'm definitely not being sarcastic. at all.
Ice Cream has no bones.
Switch to Area Code
"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Drink deeply or not at all."
In my parents postal code (in scotland) there are 11 homes, the exchange is less than a thousand feet from any of them so they all qualify for roughly the same speed of DSL.
My zip code in colorado probably has several thousand homes. I have three broadband options (DSL, Cable, Wireless) but I wouldn't be surprised to know there were people in my zip who couldn't get any.
If the FCC switched to using ZIP+4 then it would probably be a much more accurate and comparable method.
The FCC should definitely be restructured and be given a refresher course of its mission... it was originally created to govern communication frequency allocation, and that's where it should stay. It should not be acting like an unofficial censorship bureau and/or advocate to the MPAA; it should be neutral on those issues.
"It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity."
Until recently 26.4 K dial-up was all that was available where I live. Neither broadband cable or DSL was available and even 56K dial-up was not available (just 26.4K). Then a few months ago DSL finally became available and I now can download at 1.5 MBs and upload at about 800 K. The 26.4K was such a pain when I was taking several college classes that had lots of graphics intensive online study material. Security updates for Windows and Linux sometimes took hours to download.
I live in a small city in Arizona, but am not in a rural area. Most people in my Zip code did have cable and in some also had DSL available, but not where I live.
I'm always amazed at just how much broadband costs in the U.S. No wonder the FCC thinks nobody wants it!
I get ADSL from the phone company for $CDN 34.95 a month. They sent me a new DSL modem that's supposed to go twice as fast (the usual residential ADSL offering is 1.5 MBPS), but I haven't found any sites with big enough pipes to see the difference. I'm close enough to the central office to go a lot faster if I wanted to pay for it.
I have family who live out in the country. Until recently they suffered through 56k dialup that rarely connected above 28.8. Now they have satellite broadband, and pay about what I do, per person (my Mum and my sister share a connection).
...laura, well-connected Canadian Linux and Mac user
I blame RIAA, it members, MPAA, Disney as much for the collapse of WorldCom (all that *dark* fiber) and the re-emergence of the "baby" Bells and the other roads hogs. Some baby Bells, etc made state level agreements ~10 years ago that should have put them more on track for capacity and last mile if they had not reneged on the provisions of such agreements.
Yes, like Clinton, the third George's reign has helped make the world, er, country safe for our brand of state capitalism.
Cable access is pretty simple. Either the provider offers it or they do not. For the most part, it is system-wide today and not a lot of areas have cable but no Internet connectivity through it.
DSL is not so simple. You need an unbroken copper pair from the CO to the house. Most newer subdivisions in Illinois use a fiber connection to a vault and then copper from the vault to the houses. There is no room in the vault for a DSLAM, so no DSL. Especially there is no room in the vault for multiple DSLAM's so there could be at most one or two providers. This was a clear violation of the rules a few years back and the only way out was "No DSLAM period." So that is how it works in newer areas.
Older areas are generally copper to the CO without any interruptions but you do have the maximum distance limit. Many homes have fine telephone service out past 17,000 feet from the CO - no DSL for them. Past around 12,000 you aren't going to get much beyond 512K anyway, at least without quite a bit of searching for a good pair.
So cable is simple and DSL is complicated. To determine if a given address can get DSL you need to know both the distance to the CO, the facilities in the CO and the type of connectivity to the house. This is not easy outside of major metropolitan areas.
ZIP code is about as close as you could get for an approximation. Anything else would be either block-by-block or individual homes. Maybe they could get this information into the 2010 census because that would be about the only practical way to collect the volume of information that would be needed.
US broadband speeds, directional balance, and legal definitions have been dumbed down to serve the interests of the incumbent telecom and cable providers and the entertainment industry.
DSL and cable's directionally unbalanced bandwidths are legacy broadband and are technologically obsolescent. Real broadband is bi-directional and starts at about 1 GB to the home. That's what fiber is capable of providing and is what other countries are getting or building toward. A 1 GB fiber can provide telephone, Internet, and cable TV on a single connection, and should cost no more than about $50 a month for all three combined.
In such a system, any subscriber can become a content originator. To prevent discrimination, providers of content, applications, snd services should be legally separated from providers of bandwidth.
This dumbing down has a serious negative impact on US competitiveness. Innovators with real broadband can conceive of applications that US innovators wouldn't imagine because of dumbed-down broadband.
Congress and the FCC still think that broadband starts at 200 KB and that broadband is reasonably provided as a means of delivering proprietary content. They need to get up to date.