The Last Cautionary Broadband Mapping Tale Before $350 Million Is Wasted

Art Brodsky

Public Knowledge

July 6, 2009 - 6:26pm

6 comments

Later this week, on July 9, AT&T will largely complete its mission to make irrelevant one of the leading state broadband agencies in the country. The agency is the e-NC authority, an organization created eight years ago by the state legislature to track the availability of Internet services and to push for more and faster Internet service across the state.

The European Commission has recognized the excellence of e-NC’s programming. Companies such as Microsoft and IBM have recognized the agency’s excellence, and Jane Patterson, the executive director, is a world-class expert on broadband. And yet, AT&T, with the cooperation of compliant state legislators, will put the state government in the position of favoring a powerful private company over a state agency.

Needless to say, this is yet another cautionary tale of the perils of broadband mapping, and shows that it’s now more likely than ever that the telephone and cable companies will prevail in their fight to control the information on which a national broadband plan is based. Oh, yes, and up to $350 million of taxpayer money will be totally wasted.

Last week, State Rep. Bill Faison (D), who chaired the state House Select Committee on High-Speed Internet Access in Rural Areas, sent around an invitation to the July 9 press briefing. Faison said that he and other members of his committee were “very pleased to tell you that our efforts to achieve a statewide map accurately and precisely depicting broadband availability have finally borne fruit.”

The fruit is not the product of the state agency, however. Faison used his announcement to criticize e-NC: “Until now, we have not had a map showing street address availability of broadband. e-NC has generated maps based on information disclosed by the providers which are based on the average number of customers with broadband access in a wire center. Unfortunately, information provided in this fashion does not allow you to see where broadband is and where it is not, it does not allow you to see the holes in the Swiss cheese, and depending on the area the hole may be larger than the cheese.”

Note the circular logic here. Faison and other members of his committee are criticizing e-NC for their maps, which were based on information supplied, or not, as it were, by the telecom industry. The state agency has been hampered by AT&T’s unwillingness to supply broadband data and its insistence on a very restrictive non-disclosure agreement for information the company did supply.

Instead of pushing the industry to stop stonewalling e-NC, Faison and the others trashed e-NC’s work and commended the work of – AT&T, the very company that hamstrung e-NC. Here is Faison’s praise for the industry: “In the face of legislation recommended by the Committee which would have required the providers to disclose precise information to the Legislature for our staff to generate a detailed map of availability, the providers have come together and collectively decided to provide the information through Connected Nation, to not only provide the “street address” map but also to make the map both accessible and interactive through the internet. Special recognition should be given to AT&T, Embarq, Sprint, Time Warner Cable, The Cable Association, the Telephone Co-op association, and Alltel for their work on this matter.”

Now that the state will have a “good” map in hand, it can grab some of that stimulus money, Faison said: “North Carolina will be one of only six states with a detailed “street address” interactive map of broadband availability. It positions us advantageously to obtain a portion of $7.4 billion in Stimulus money available for broadband deployment. A map, such as ours, is now a precondition for obtaining this portion of the Stimulus money. The collaborative work of the Committee and the providers has now postured North Carolina in the most favorable of positions to not only obtain this portion of the Stimulus money, but also to advance broadband deployment for our people.”

To recap: AT&T stiffs the state, and then makes up its own map, which state legislators accept. There is no transparency, no verification, no nothing. (But it is interactive.) The only way in which this can not be a total conflict of interest is to recall the (perhaps) apocryphal story of the Maryland state legislator who also owned a liquor store. He introduced a bill to help liquor stores and was asked if this bill was a conflict of interest. “How does this conflict with my interests,” he was said to have replied. Exactly.

In its work, e-NC has two main tasks. One is mapping. With the industry map, that function is severely decreased. The other is to give incentive grants. The state is in a budget crisis, and grants were eliminated for the current fiscal year, with more cuts at the agency to come.

At least one company fails to see the irony. Embarq, which was given “special recognition” by Faison for its help in co-opting mapping, was the recipient of a $693,000 grant announced in March. The grant was given by the e-NC Authority, the very agency Embarq is helping to torpedo. Perhaps they should give the money back.

AT&T, by the way, is the prime mover behind Connected Nation. The cautionary tale is that the company will stop at nothing in order to foist its version of broadband reality on the public, including destroying e-NC. And there is little that policymakers can do about it, thanks to the Broadband Data Improvement Act, taken from legislation sponsored by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) that Congress passed last year. The bill sets up awards to go to the group most wired into state governments – Connected Nation, backed by the army of telephone and cable lobbyists around the country.

What kind of maps will the American public get for its $350 million? Here are two examples. The first is from Connect Ohio, the Connected Nation affiliate that will cost the state about $7 million. This is their map of SummitCounty, around Akron:

It is a pink blob, which supposedly represents where broadband is available, measuring distances from telephone company facilities. It is devoid of detail.

Now, for comparison, here is a map of the same area done by Strategic Networks Group, a private company not eligible for federal mapping grant money under the terms of the Broadband Data Improvement Act, for the Knight Center of Digital Excellence:

It delineates much more clearly which areas are served with what type of technology. But it gets better. Here is a more complete slide deck from SNG’s work. A comparison with Connect Ohio’s work is invited. One is worth the money. Here’s a slide deck from SNG on broadband demand.

The government notice setting out the terms for the mapping grants was sadly deficient. Even if one grants that Connected Nation was wired in under the terms of a misguided bill, the agency notice of funds availability had no conflict-of-interest safeguards. There are no requirements for transparency or for verification of information. There are no standard data sets to make sure all the maps measure the same things. Instead, there are what appear to be protections for “confidential” information that could render the process useless.

Perhaps some of these deficiencies can be cured at the program moves forward. Perhaps not. In either case, these cautionary tales are getting a bit tiresome. Jury-rigged RFPs, no-bid contracts, hot-wired legislatures and state agencies are no way to run a program as important as broadband.

The stimulus broadband mapping program is set up for massive failure unless changes are made. Congress has to allow more competition for grants. The Durbin argument that private, for-profit companies shouldn’t do public work like broadband mapping, while non-profits should, falls apart when one considers the advantages of an independent company vs. a compromised non-profit. The agencies responsible need more detailed criteria to protect the public investment. Consistency, transparency, public verification and less protection of information are needed. Maybe then can an #epic fail can be avoided.

Ironically, the Connected

Submitted by ISP on July 6, 2009 - 10:23pm.

Ironically, the Connected Nation map is better in some significant respects. It’s not as colorful, but it has much finer detail and covers the parks whereas the other map does not. (Coverage in parks and national forests is important, because people really do live and work there. The same is true of BLM land, which constitutes a substantial portion of some states, such as Wyoming.)

What’s more, the blocky map has a flaw which makes it utterly unsuitable for use in any broadband mapping effort (and, by the way, violates the provisions of the ARRA): it isn’t technology-neutral. It discriminates against innovative technology by failing to count wireless broadband as broadband, even though wireless is technologically superior. (Just try to cut a microwave link with a backhoe!)

Your argument that Connected Nation is somehow evil because AT&T participates in it is argumentum ad hominem. A large number of carriers are involved in Connected Nation, and carriers are the best people to map broadband coverage.

“… even though wireless

Submitted by Henry Cohen on July 7, 2009 - 12:09pm.

“… even though wireless is technologically superior. (Just try to cut a microwave link with a backhoe!)”

This really is not a valid argument. At some point, the first and last microwave nodes have hard wire connections that are susceptible to physical dangers (your backhoe), as are the antenna and support structure. Never underestimate the carelessness or ignorance of work crews.

Moreover, RF links, especially millimeter wave (microwave), are quite prone to degraded performance due to post installation obstructions to both the direct path and the fresnel zone: Tree or weed growth, new structures, RF interference. Even weather conditions can be detrimental: High winds moving the antenna(s) about; causing nearby objects to blow over on to the antenna, the structure or into the link path; high moisture content in the air or precipitation attenuating the RF signal.

In short, wireless in and of itself isn’t technologically superior to copper or fiber distribution; it’s an alternate technology which has application advantages in given situations once logistics and costs are examined.

I do agree however that if one is examining the availability of broadband at the end point (the user), wireless is as valid a delivery medium as copper and fiber, and to ignore it is due to either ignorance or an underlying [and likely hidden] agenda.

Henry Cohen Production Radio Rentals

The chances of a backhoe

Submitted by ISP on July 7, 2009 - 1:58pm.

The chances of a backhoe destroying a radio link are negligible, especially since — in most cases — towers are fenced and antennas are placed on buildings. (If you hit your building with a backhoe, you have far greater problems than getting your Internet connection up.)

On the other hand, the chances of it digging up fiber are considerable. (In fact, fiber cuts are so common that even redundant connections are too frequently brought down by digging.)

What’s more, a properly engineered microwave link is not affected by moisture in the air, wind (if the mount is affected by any wind short of a hurricane or tornado, the antenna has been installed improperly), or foliage. If any of these things affects the system, the installer or engineer was not competent. We know; we design and install microwave systems every day. And we bring high speed Internet to areas which are economically infeasible to serve with fiber or even with copper.

Wireless technology is a superior solution, and there is no excuse for excluding it from any survey of broadband coverage. Least of all petty political vendettas, such as the one which the author of the article above appears to be mounting against Connected Nation.

“What’s more, a properly

Submitted by Henry Cohen on July 7, 2009 - 2:52pm.

“What’s more, a properly engineered microwave link is not affected by moisture in the air …”

I suspect you meant to say a properly designed microwave RF link has sufficient link budget to account for the attenuation caused by increased air moisture content or precipitation; otherwise you’ve achieved the ability to ignore the laws of physics. Scatter, refraction and absorption all occur to varying degrees based on the particular climate condition at hand and result in signal attenuation. If the engineering was done correctly, that attenuation will not be enough to cause the signal level to go below the minimum RX sensitivity, but it will cause an increase in BER and the data rate will throttle back to keep the error rate low enough so as keep the link usable.

And yes, I was referring to hurricane/tornado strength winds.

Again, I do agree that in given applications - such as where buried copper/fiber runs are frequently being damaged, or where distance and/or terrain make the laying of a physical backbone impractical - wireless is a superior “solution” (but not a superior “technology”)

It’s my understanding however that with currently available technologies, fiber (and copper) will still deliver far greater full-duplex data rates given cost per MBPS to install and maintain.

Henry Cohen Production Radio Rentals

I said, “unaffected,”

Submitted by ISP on July 8, 2009 - 12:39am.

I said, “unaffected,” and that’s what I meant. Yes, the radios might have reduced link margins, but as far as the customer is concerned the connection stays up and works as before.

As for wireless technology: it is advancing far faster than those of fiber and copper. The only limitation on the capacity of wireless is not technological but bureaucratic and political; that is to say, it is limited only by the amount of available spectrum.

It’s now up to the

Submitted by Mitch Shapiro on July 8, 2009 - 7:41pm.

It’s now up to the states.

The situation in NC seems to be the latest case of economic and political muscle combining to constrain the public interest—even more distressing now, since very large amounts of public money will soon be spent to generate data, maps and analysis designed to serve the public interest, and the fact that e-NC, an admirable and public-service-oriented pioneer in this area, is being undermined by incumbent service providers and shortsighted politicians.

The good news is that the mapping NOFA opens the door to a solution that could strike the right balance between public and private interests, and between the idealistic goals and often harsh realities of politics and government decision-making.

The big question now is how many states will have the institutional will to walk through that door. To do so, state decision-makers will need to understand and embrace an approach to broadband mapping that shifts the balance toward the public interest, and away from the sway of deep-pocket political pressure and poorly-informed expediency.

[Disclosure: I’m an industry analyst who worked with SNG on the SummitCounty project referenced by Art]

In a post on the SNG web site I sketch out a framework for states to adopt this kind of approach and some of the key issues and benefits related to it. To make these benefits a reality, state leaders need to step up to the plate with vision and integrity.

Art’s cautionary tale about NC is not encouraging on that front, but I don’t believe the jury’s yet in on this question. In fact, I’m hoping the NOFA (with some prodding from folks like Art) can trigger a movement among states to cooperate in crafting solutions that truly do serve the public interest. These would be based on a shared sense of purpose and a common set of data specifications that serve the needs of each state, the NTIA’s national broadband map, and the FCC’s effort to craft a future-ready national broadband strategy.

As Art notes, the SNG map shows areas that only have access to cable modem service but not DSL, and vice versa, something not shown in the CN maps. My reading of NTIA’s mapping NOFA is that this type of distinction by “technologies used to provide broadband service” will be required to receive NTIA funding. That’s a step in the right direction. It also means that the CN map posted by Art lacks key “technology” information needed to meet NTIA funding requirements.

The mapping NOFA appears to draw the “confidentiality” line at the point where a particular company is associated with availability, technology, speed and other data provided by ISPs (or the FCC). It also says that “[a]s a condition of grant funding under this Program, awardees may not agree to a more restrictive definition of Confidential Information than the definition adopted by this Program.” That’s yet another important step in the right direction. It also seems to preclude the kind of CN “general availability” map Art posted, and which many have argued provides insufficient information about available broadband technology platforms.