The FCC announced today that he started soliciting first-hand accounts from people who are forced to rely on the damn 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 “increase the accuracy of its existing broadband maps.”
“Too many Americans are lagging behind in terms of access to jobs, education and healthcare if they do not have access to broadband,” FCC President-elect Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement announcing the initiative. “Collecting data from consumers who are 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 want to tell the FCC how bad their internet shit is can use this form to talk about any internet issues. Does your ISP restrict your internet? Write it down. Will the ISP not update the old DSL service? Write it down. You don’t have internet at all because you live in a rural area and HughesNet is too damn expensive? Write everything down.
The FCC says this new website will also become an information hub for the broadband data collection program, a kind of one-stop shop for consumers and industry stakeholders to keep up to date with what’s happening in the world. home internet. And once the FCC has collected enough personal anecdotes, the agency will provide information on its new broadband data collection reporting systems that have not yet been established.
G / O Media may receive a commission
On the one hand, this seems to be an invigorating change of pace compared to how the FCC did things under the previous administration. But at the same time, it already exists Lots of anecdotal evidence there about how the nation’s coverage and broadband speed are lagging behind. The media, various organizations and data companies have already reported the situation and these reports would point the FCC in the right direction.
BroadbandNowfor example, it has a detailed map showing each U.S. census block that does not have a terrestrial broadband provider. Fixing the reporting gap in Form 477 – which allowed ISPs to report that an entire census block was covered by their service, even if only one home in that census block actually subscribed to that service – was a start. But the FCC used this flawed data as a basis for Internet service providers to bid in its Digital Rural Opportunity Fund (RDOF) bid last year, prompting municipal broadband providers and power cooperatives to bid. ask if the grant money went to the right companies. Not to mention the previous winners of the RDOF auction they failed to provide rural America with the Internet for the amount of time they said they would.
There is also a bit of irony in directing them who are “directly affected by the lack of broadband access” to an online form as the only way to tell the FCC how the lack of broadband access affects their lives. Come on, FCC. You can do better than this half-hearted attempt to understand the actual number of people in the US who they do not have reliable internet access and how it affects them.