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Something like 1/3rd of the homes that can't get broadband were ignored by the Broadband Map. At least a million homes and possibly three million have very local problems that prevent them getting service such as out of date remote terminals. NTIA recognized this and the NOFA required bidders "to gather data at the address-level on broadband availability, technology, speed, infrastructure, ARPU, and, in the case of wireless broadband, the spectrum used, across the project areas."

    Everyone involved in broadband mapping realizes that specific data by address is required for accuracy. The major carriers have fairly accurate data in their "pre-qualification" database based on actual line tests. Somehow in the NTIA process this was lost and instead they worked with aggregated data known to have serious errors. 

    The giveway was how many areas on the map showed 100% coverage. There are almost no areas in the U.S. where 100% can get broadband. For example, Verizon couldn't offer DSL to about 10% of New York and AT&T had to say no to about 10% of Chicago. New York and Chicago are older, dense cities where nearly all homes are within DSL reach of a central office. If you make a DSL map based on distance/block data, nearly everyone would be served. It turns out a meaningful number of apartments in both cities are served by remote terminals that block DSL unless upgraded. The same is true in many suburban and rural pockets developed between 1975 and 1995. Other technical issues (pairgain equipment, bad copper) similarly prevent serving selected homes.

     Similarly, the cablecos do not offer service in the parts of their territory that have fewer homes. Residences within business and industrial areas also often aren't served. There's no way to accurately know the overlap without the data by address. 

     This was an obvious problem in the early maps such as Connect Kentucky. CK told me the prequal data wasn't available for their early efforts but they would get it from the carriers from then on. Because they clearly understood the problem and said it was solved I backed away from my criticism of CK's mapping.  Every expert in broadband mapping knows the issue well. 

    When you buy a computer from Dell or Best Buy, the seller's computer checks with the carriers prequal to see whether they can earn a commission by selling broadband as well. It's awkward and expensive to find out later that a customer sold service can't be reached, so the carriers make sure to have that data available. I'm guessing how many homes are involved. It's shared daily with thousands of resellers, but they've never provided an aggregate number of how many homes are involved. 

     The NTIA map finds 2-5M homes can't get service by various measures. The Broadband Plan estimated 5-7M homes. So two million missed because of lack of specific data by address would add about a third to the number of unserved. My guess is that the mappers have counted more servable homes as unserved than this would reduce the totals, but without direct access to the data I can't be sure. 

From NTIA, data provided for perspective. I'm printing verbatim.

1.       National Broadband Map Data is at the census-block level.

NOFA clarification: http://www.ntia.doc.gov/frnotices/2009/FR_BroadbandMappingNOFA_090708.pdf

Background:

All data is provided at the census block level, blocks over 2 square miles we collected at the road segment level. The census block is the smallest unit of geography for which the Census Department makes records available. Most of the country lives in census blocks that are less than two square miles.  In many urban areas, the blocks are much smaller. In aggregate, providers generally don’t have data at the address level and most states do not possess a complete address file. Requiring address-level data would have lead to inaccurate or incomplete information. NTIA will continue to strive to develop the most granular data possible in the future and is even helping to fund several states to develop address files.

2.       Explanation of  our 5-10% number from the press release

Statement attributable to NTIA from our press release:

“The map shows that between 5 - 10 percent of Americans lack access to broadband at speeds that support a basic set of applications, including downloading Web pages, photos and video, and using simple video conferencing. The FCC last July set a benchmark of 4 Mbps actual speed downstream and 1 Mbps upstream to support these applications. NTIA collected data in ranges between 3 – 6 Mbps and 6 – 10 Mbps maximum advertised download speeds, which are the closest measurements to the speed benchmark for broadband that the FCC set.”

Background:

See the FCC’s press release on the 706 item described broadband: http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-299989A1.pdf

While the FCC refers to broadband as actual speeds of 4 Mbps down and 1 Mbps, that is not a metric used in the NBM.  NBM data reflects maximum advertised speed tiers, not actual speeds. The closest are  maximum advertised speeds of:

a) equal to or greater than 3 Mbps and less than 6 Mbps

b) equal to or greater than 6 Mbps and less than 10 Mbps

These speed tiers are not available to approximately 5 and 10 percent of Americans, respectively. Note that we adopted our tiers BEFORE the FCC set the new 4 Mbps threshold

3.       Background point regarding the CA map:

-          One study was done in 2007 with less than 30 providers, the other was done more than three years later with data from over than 80 providers. The studies used different variables such as speed tiers and data collection methodologies.

Additional Background:

-We encourage all users to use our crowdsourcing features to continue to improve the map.

-All of our data is downloadable.

-More than 1650 unique providers from across the country provided data for the map. We encourage small providers who did not submit data to participate in the future.

See also Anne Neville’s recent blog: http://www.broadbandmap.gov/blog/2486/25-million-records/

Thanks,

Moira

25 Million Records

Posted on February 25, 2011 by admin

Last week we released the first version of the National Broadband Map (NBM). The data it contains represents the hard work of 50 states, 3 territories and the District of Columbia over the last year and a half. With over 25 million records, this dataset is the first of its kind and provides an invaluable resource of information on broadband availability in the Nation. As with any first, however, there is information that needs to be corrected that does not display correctly.

We identified some of this information at launch and listed it on our FAQ section.

We are currently updating this section to address other issues we have identified. We want to call particular attention to how Arkansas is displayed on one of our maps. Arkansas provided its data to us, but due to some processing issues, that data is not currently displaying on the Broadband Availability across Demographic Characteristics . As we work to fix this gap, we recommend you look at the Analyze section of the NBM to see this type of information about Arkansas.

You may also want to check out Connect Arkansas which has done a great job of gathering this data and organizing communities to expand broadband opportunities. They’ve also completed a survey about broadband adoption in their state that yields some fascinating information.

We’re very excited about the response to the National Broadband Map, appreciate all your feedback and encourage you to keep using the crowdsourcing tools on the website.