He FCC announced today that has started asking for first hand accounts from people who are forced to rely on shitty internet. This new initiative is part of the FCC’s broadband data collection program, and the agency hopes that by collecting information directly from consumers, it will be better equipped to “improve the accuracy of its existing broadband maps.”
“Many Americans are left behind in accessing jobs, education and health care if they do not have access to broadband,” FCC Acting President Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement announcing the initiative. “Collecting data from consumers directly affected by the lack of broadband access will help inform the FCC’s mapping efforts and future decisions about where the service is needed.”
Anyone who wants to report to the FCC the harm that hurts the Internet you can use this form to talk about any internet related issues. Does the ISP restrict your internet? Write it down. Will the ISP not update your old DSL service? Write it down. Don’t have internet because you live in a rural area and HughesNet is too expensive? Write it all down.
The FCC claims that this new website will also become an information center for the broadband data collection program, a kind of one-stop shop for consumers and industry stakeholders to keep track of what is being moving into the world of home internet. And once the FCC has collected enough personal anecdotes, the agency will provide information about its new broadband data collection reporting systems that have not yet been established.
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On the one hand, it seems like a refreshing change of pace compared to how the FCC did things under the previous administration. But at the same time, there are already lots of anecdotal evidence out there on how coverage and broadband speed in the country are delayed. The media, various organizations and data companies have already reported on the situation and these reports would point the FCC in the right direction.
Broadband Ara, for example, has an in-depth map showing all U.S. census blocks that do not have a terrestrial broadband provider. Fixed the information gap in Form 477, which allowed information providers to report that an entire census block was covered by their service, even if there was only one census block household subscribed to that service. But the FCC used this flawed data as a basis for ISPs to bid at its rural digital opportunity fund (RDOF) auction last year, prompting municipal broadband providers and cooperatives to ask if the grant money went to the right companies. Not to mention the previous winners of the RDOF auctions they have not been able to provide internet to rural America in the period of time they said they would.
There’s also a bit of irony when it comes to directing them who are “directly affected by the lack of broadband access” to an online form as the only means to explain to the FCC how their lack of broadband access affects their lives. Come on, FCC. You can do better than this means trying to figure out the actual number of people in the US who they do not have reliable internet access i how this affects them.