How Bad Maps are Ruining American Broadband

Source: 
Author: 
Coverage Type: 

US customers pay some of the highest prices for broadband in the developed world, and broadband availability is sketchy at best for millions of Americans. But instead of tackling that problem head on, the Federal Communications Commission is increasingly looking the other way, relying on Internet service provider (ISP) data that paints an inaccurately rosy picture of Americans’ internet access. And as long as regulators are relying on a false picture of US broadband access, actually solving the problem may be impossible. 

In policy conversations, ISP lobbyists lean heavily on the FCC’s flawed data to falsely suggest that American broadband is dirt cheap and ultra competitive, despite real-world evidence to the contrary. ISPs also use this false reality to imply meaningful consumer protections aren’t necessary because the market is healthy (as we saw during the fight over net neutrality). “By painting a far rosier picture of the digital divide than is warranted, policymakers have a far less sense of urgency about fixing the problem,” notes Gigi Sohn, a Benton Foundation senior fellow and former counselor to previous FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. “And of course, if you don’t know the breadth of a problem, policymakers can’t be very strategic or targeted in fixing it.” Fixing the data collection methodology at the heart of the problem shouldn’t be complicated, Sohn said, but ISPs have routinely lobbied against nearly every effort to do so. “I would require the Internet access providers to, at a minimum, do a block-by-block mapping, and preferably, every home or building, along with prices, which would then be reported on the Form 477,” Sohn said when asked how she’d go about fixing the problem. “It’s just a lack of political will to ask the companies to do more,” Sohn said.


How Bad Maps are Ruining American Broadband