Senate Democrats Want Better Broadband Data
Inouye: ‘We Cannot Manage What We Do Not Measure’
By Ted Hearn -- Multichannel News, 5/24/2007 2:06:00 PM
A group of Senate Democrats led by Commerce Committee chairman Daniel Inouye of Hawaii introduced legislation Thursday designed to improve the federal government’s measurement of broadband deployment and penetration in all 50 states.
Democrats on Capitol Hill and at the Federal Communications Commission have complained for years that the FCC’s definition of broadband -- at least 200 kilobits per second in both directions -- was outdated. They also questioned reliance on five-digit ZIP codes to determine broadband availability, claiming that this method tended to overstate the number of homes with access, especially if the ZIP codes were geographically large.
“The first step in an improved broadband policy is ensuring that we have better data on which to build our efforts,” Inouye said in a prepared statement. “In a digital age, the world will not wait for us. It is imperative that we get our broadband house in order and our communications policy right. But we cannot manage what we do not measure.”
The bill did not include any Republican sponsors, perhaps because FCC chairman Kevin Martin and other Bush administration officials past and present have not agreed with Democrats about the accuracy of global rankings that show the United States constantly slipping in the broadband-penetration race. Martin, for example, has noted that the United States comes out much better in the global race when penetration rates take into account population density in a region.
The National Cable & Telecommunications Association claimed that its industry’s high-speed-data service, which far exceeds the 200-kbps standard, is available to 95% of U.S. homes.
In his statement, Inouye noted that in April, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development reported that the U.S. had tumbled to 15th in world broadband penetration. He added that other consumers in some countries were paying a lot less for higher-quality service.
“In some Asian and European countries, households have high-speed connections that are 20 times faster than ours for half the cost. While some will debate what, in fact, these rankings measure, one thing that cannot be debated is the fact that we continue to fall precipitously down the list,” Inouye said.
According a committee press release, the Broadband Data Improvement Act (S. 1492) would:
• Direct the FCC to re-evaluate its current 200-kbps broadband standard. It also would require the agency to create a new metric known as second-generation broadband, to be used to reflect network connections capable of reliably transmitting HD video content.
• Direct broadband providers to report broadband availability and second-generation broadband connections within nine-digit ZIP-code areas.
• Direct the FCC to conduct inquiries into the deployment of advanced telecommunications services on an annual, rather than periodic, basis.
• Direct the Census Bureau to include a question in its American Community Survey that assesses levels of residential computer use and dial-up versus broadband Internet subscribership.
• Direct the Government Accountability Office to develop broadband metrics that may be used to provide consumers with broadband-connection cost and capability information and improve the process of comparing the deployment and penetration of broadband in the United States with other countries.
• Direct the Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy to conduct a study evaluating the impact of broadband speed and price on small businesses.
• Authorize a five-year, $40 million-per-year program that would provide matching grants to state nonprofit, public-private partnerships in support of efforts to more accurately identify barriers to broadband adoption throughout the state.
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