Challenges Seen in Collecting, Incorporating Broadband Pricing Data
NTIA, set to publish the second round of broadband data in August, understands there’s been interest in collecting broadband pricing data, said Anne Neville, program director of State Broadband Data and Development Grant Program. The reality is pricing often changes frequently so there’s no easy apple-to-apple comparison, she told the Broadband Breakfast Club on Tuesday. Combined with the cost of reviewing and publishing data, she said data collecting, maintaining and validating is expensive. NTIA hasn’t received any proposal to collect pricing data, she noted. If any third party has an idea of how to “marry data with pricing,” they can do so, Neville said.
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There’s strong interest in gathering pricing information because price often matters the most to consumers, said William Johnson, deputy director of New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services. Pricing is something that New York needs to pay more attention to, he said. Pricing information is a key element missing from NTIA’s national broadband map, critics have said (CD Feb 18 p2).
The broadband map has been used at the state and local level, Neville said. She noted that states like New York and Maine conducted their own adoption surveys in urban and rural communities. The FCC and the Department of Education have started incorporating the map into their policy analysis, she said. States that have received NTIA grants have started new data validation techniques, Neville said. NTIA is assessing how to better identify different types of service providers, she said. For providers like Comcast, which has been assisting data collection, timing is a problem for using the broadband data, said David Don, senior director for public policy. Because the data that’s been collected isn’t in real-time, it has little value for pure competitive purposes, he said.
The District of Columbia initiated its own data collecting effort prior to receipt of NTIA’s grants, said Cary Hinton, policy advisor to the chief of the D.C. Public Service Commission. The commission asks providers on a voluntary basis to offer a copy of FCC Form 477 regarding broadband connection data, he said. That gives the local commission access to adoption data, he said. Hearing back from companies is a challenge, but there’s been an increase of cooperation, he said. Providers have started to understand the importance of broadband data, he said. The NTIA’s data focuses on broadband availability, which isn’t an issue for D.C., said Hinton. For D.C., which almost has 100 percent broadband availability, the big challenge is adoption, he said. The city’s own initiative offers data, including on adoption, on a census block basis, he said. NTIA’s grant allows state and local jurisdictions some flexibility to address their specific concerns, Hinton said.
Panelists generally praised NTIA’s mapping effort, though they emphasized that the map has issues like accuracy. The map might not be 100 percent accurate but it’s evolving, said Hinton. “None of us was doing mapping five years ago.” It’s critical that the FCC uses the data in its Universal Service Fund proceeding, he said. It’s a comprehensive map that’s based on facts, said Johnson. But some of the mechanisms used in round one could be improved, he said. The second round of data is expected to be better, Don said. Vice President Nicol Turner-Lee of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies urged NTIA and state and local agencies to look at other factors in broadband-like investment, content and usage. She said agencies also need to look at how to enable the use of different applications such as for health IT.