FCC’s broadband deployment report called ‘fundamentally at odds with reality’

Comment

FCC net neutrality
Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch

The FCC has officially issued this year’s Broadband Deployment Report, summarizing the extent to which the agency and industry have closed the digital divide in this country. But not everyone agrees with it: “The rosy picture the report paints about the status of broadband deployment is fundamentally at odds with reality,” said Geoffrey Starks in a lengthy dissenting statement.

The yearly report, mandated by Congress, documents things like new broadband customers in rural areas, broadband expanding to new regions and all that sort of thing. The one issued today proclaims cheerfully:

[The FCC] has made closing the digital divide between Americans with, and without, access to modern broadband networks its top priority. As a result of those efforts, the digital divide has narrowed substantially, and more Americans than ever before have access to high-speed broadband.

We find, for a second consecutive year, that advanced telecommunications capability is being deployed on a reasonable and timely basis.

Naturally the FCC wants to highlight the progress made rather than linger on failures, but this year the latter are highly germane, as Starks points out, largely because one error in particular threw off the results by millions.

FCC ‘looking into’ reported error throwing broadband deployment numbers off by millions

The statistics in the report are based on forms filled out by broadband providers, which seem to go unchecked even in the case of massive outliers. Barrier Free broadband reported having gone from zero subscribers in March of 2017 to,  seven months later, serving the entirety of New York state’s 62 million residents with state of the art gigabit fiber connections. There are so many things wrong with this filing that the freshest intern at the Commission should have flagged it as suspect.

Instead, the data was accepted as gospel, and only a full year later did reporters at Free Press notice the discrepancy and call it to the FCC’s attention.

That this error, so enormous in scope, so obvious and so consequential (it skewed the national numbers by large amounts), was not detected, and once detected was only cursorily addressed, leaves Starks flabbergasted:

The fact that a 2019 Broadband Deployment Report with an error of over 62 million connections was circulated to the full Commission raises serious questions. Was the Chairman’s office aware of the errors when it circulated the draft report? If not, why didn’t an “outlier” detection function raise alarms with regard to Barrier Free? Also, once the report was corrected, the fact that such a large number of connections came out of the report’s underlying data without changing the report’s conclusion, and without resulting in a substantial charge to the report, calls into question the extent to which the report and its conclusions depend on and flow from data.

In other words, if the numbers can change that much and the conclusions stay the same, what exactly are the conclusions based on?

Starks is the latest Commissioner to be appointed and one of the two Democrats there, the other being Jessica Rosenworcel (the Commission maintains a 3:2 party balance in favor of the current administration). Both have been outspoken in their criticism of the way the Broadband Deployment Report is researched and issued.

It’s the same data used to create the FCC’s broadband map, which ostensibly shows which carriers and speeds are available in your area. But the issues with this are many and various.

The data is only broken down by census tract, a unit that varies a great deal in size — some are tiny, some enormous. Yet if one company provides service to one person in that tract, it is considered “served” with that broadband capability throughout. The resulting map is so full of inaccuracies as to be useless, many argue — including Microsoft, which recently said it had observed “significant discrepancies across nearly all counties in all 50 states.”

Microsoft says its data shows FCC reports massively overstate broadband adoption

The good news is that the FCC is aware of this and currently working on ways to improve data gathering. In future years better rules or more location-specific reporting could make the maps and deployment report considerably better. But at present, Starks concludes, “I don’t believe that we know what the state of broadband deployment is in the U.S. with sufficient accuracy.”

Commissioner Rosenworcel was similarly unsparing in her dissent.

“This report deserves a failing grade,” she wrote. “Putting aside the embarrassing fumble of the FCC blindly accepting incorrect data for the original version of this report, there are serious problems with its basic methodology. Time and again this agency has acknowledged the grave limitations of the data we collect to assess broadband deployment.”

The data also do not address problems that are unlikely to be addressed in forms filled out by the industry, such as redlining, shady business practices and high prices for the broadband that is available.

“We will never manage problems we do not measure,” she continued. “Our ability to address the challenge of uneven internet access across the country is only made more challenging by our inability to be frank about the state of deployment today. Moreover, we need to be thoughtful about how impediments to adoption, like affordability, are an important part of the digital equity equation and our national broadband challenge.”

The Republican Commissioners, Brendan Carr and Michael O’Rielly, supported the report and did not mention the systematic data sourcing problems or indeed the enormous error that caused the draft of this report to be totally off base. O’Rielly did have an objection, however. He is “dismayed by the report’s reliance on purported ‘insufficient evidence’ as a basis for maintaining—for yet another year in a row—an outdated siloed approach to evaluating fixed and mobile broadband, rather than examining both markets as one.”

This has been suggested before and is a dangerously bad idea.

It should be said that the report isn’t one big single error. There’s more to it than just repackaging the aspirational numbers of the telecoms industry — though that’s a big part. It still holds interesting data that can be used in apples-to-apples comparisons to previous years. But more than ever it sounds like that data and any conclusions made from it — or for that matter rules or legislation — should be taken with a grain of salt.

More TechCrunch

After two years of preparation and four delays over the past several months due to technical glitches, Indian space startup Agnikul has successfully launched its first sub-orbital test vehicle, powered…

India’s Agnikul launches 3D-printed rocket in sub-orbital test after initial delays

Struggling EV startup Fisker has laid off hundreds of employees in a bid to stay alive, as it continues to search for funding, a buyout or prepare for bankruptcy. Workers…

Fisker cuts hundreds of workers in bid to keep EV startup alive

Chinese EV manufacturers face a new challenge in their pursuit of U.S. customers: a new House bill that would limit or ban the introduction of their connected vehicles. The bill,…

Chinese EV makers, and their connected vehicles, targeted by new House bill

With the release of iOS 18 later this year, Apple may again borrow ideas third-party apps. This time it’s Arc that could be among those affected.

Is Apple planning to ‘sherlock’ Arc?

TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 will be in San Francisco on October 28–30, and we’re already excited! This is the startup world’s main event, and it’s where you’ll find the knowledge, tools…

Meet Visa, Mercury, Artisan, Golub Capital and more at TC Disrupt 2024

Featured Article

The women in AI making a difference

As a part of a multi-part series, TechCrunch is highlighting women innovators — from academics to policymakers —in the field of AI.

11 hours ago
The women in AI making a difference

Cadillac may seem a bit too traditional to hang its driving cap on EVs. And yet, that hasn’t stopped the GM brand from rolling out — or at least showing…

The Cadillac Optiq EV starts at $54,000 and is designed to hook young hipsters

Ifeel is being offered as part of an employer’s or insurance provider’s healthcare coverage.

Mental health insurance platform ifeel raises a $20 million Series B

Instead of opening the user’s actual browser or a WebView, Custom Tabs let users remain in their app while browsing.

Google Chrome becomes a ‘picture-in-picture’ app

Sanil Chawla remembers the meetings he had with countless artists in college. Those creatives were looking for one thing: sustainable economic infrastructure that could help them scale rather than drown…

Slingshot raises $2.2 million to provide financial services to artists

A startup called Firefly that’s tackling the thorny and growing issue of cloud asset management with an “infrastructure as code” solution has raised $23 million in funding. That comes on…

Firefly forges on after co-founder murdered by Hamas

Mistral, the French AI startup backed by Microsoft and valued at $6 billion, has released its first generative AI model for coding, dubbed Codestral. Like other code-generating models, Codestral is…

Mistral releases Codestral, its first generative AI model for code

Pinterest announced today that it is evolving its Creator Inclusion Fund to now be called the Pinterest Inclusion Fund. Pinterest teamed up with Shopify’s Build Black and Build Native programs…

Pinterest expands its Creator Fund to allow founders

Alex Taub, a longtime founder with multiple exits under his belt, believes it’s time to disrupt the meme industry. “I have this big thesis that meme tech is going to…

This founder says meme tech is the next big thing

Lux, the startup behind popular pro photography app Halide and others, is venturing into video with its latest app launch. On Wednesday, the company announced Kino, a new video capture app…

Kino is a new iPhone app for videographers from the makers of Halide

DevOps startup Harness has shown itself to be an ambitious company, building a broad platform of services while also dabbling in M&A when it made sense to fill in functionality.…

Harness snags Split.io as it goes all in on feature flags and experiments

Microsoft’s Copilot, a generative AI-powered tool that can generate text as well as answer specific questions, is now available as an in-app chatbot on Telegram, the instant messaging app.  Currently…

Microsoft’s Copilot is now on Telegram

HBO’s new documentary, “MoviePass, MovieCrash,” tells a story that many of us know about: how MoviePass, the subscription-based movie ticketing startup, was a catastrophic failure. After a series of mishaps…

MoviePass co-founders speak their truth in HBO’s new documentary 

The watch features a variety of different 3D games, unlocking more play time the more kids move.

Fitbit’s new kid smartwatch is a little Wiimote, a little Tamagotchi

In the video, a crowd is roaring at a packed summer music festival. As a beat starts playing over the speakers, the performer finally walks onstage: It’s the Joker. Clad…

Discord has become an unlikely center for the generative AI boom

After the Wirecard scandal, Germany’s financial regulator BaFin started to look more closely at young fintech startups that wanted to grow at a rapid pace — it’s better to be…

Germany’s financial regulator ends anti-money laundering cap on N26 signups after $10M fine

Among other things, this includes the ability to trace code from source to binary packages across both platforms, single sign-on support and unified project structures.

JFrog and GitHub team up to closely integrate their source code and binary platforms

The company’s public fund disbursement and e-commerce platform makes accepting school tuition and enabling educational enrichment more accessible. 

Tech startup Odyssey goes on journey to help states implement school choice programs

A new startup called Kinnect aims to help people privately save generational memories, traditions, recipes and more. The company’s app, launched this month, lets people create invite-only spaces where they…

Kinnect’s new app aims to help families record and store generational memories

Spotify has hiked its premium subscription in France by an eye-watering €0.13, in response to a new music-streaming tax.

Spotify hikes subscription price in France by 1.2% to match new music-streaming tax

The European Union has taken the wraps off the structure of the new AI Office, the ecosystem-building and oversight body that’s being established under the bloc’s AI Act. The risk-based…

With the EU AI Act incoming this summer, the bloc lays out its plan for AI governance

Solutions by Text, a company that gives people a way to pay their bills and apply for loans via text messaging, has secured $110 million in new growth funding. Edison…

Bootstrapped for over a decade, this Dallas company just secured $110M to help people pay bills by text

Owners of small- and medium-sized businesses check their bank balances daily to make financial decisions. But it’s entrepreneur Yoseph West’s assertion that there’s typically information and functions missing from bank…

Relay raises $32.2 million to help smaller businesses manage their cash flow

When other firms were investing and raising eye-popping sums, Clean Energy Ventures took a different approach. It appears to be paying off.

How Clean Energy Ventures avoided the pandemic bubble and raised a $305M fund

PwC, the management consulting giant, will become OpenAI’s biggest customer to date, covering 100,000 users.

OpenAI signs 100K PwC workers to ChatGPT’s enterprise tier as PwC becomes its first resale partner