The Big Picture on Broadband at the Policy Summit

Blog Entries

From the Broadband Policy Summit IV blog:

Q&A: Morning Panel, “The Big Picture”

Drew Clark of BroadbandCensus.com asks the panel their opinion about Rep. Markey’s Broadband Census Act.

Jim Cicconi states that AT&T has no problem with the legislation in particular but believes the Commission’s recent reforms largely get the job done anyway.

Ms. Schaefer seconds this point-of-view and encourages the audience to look for the coming FCC order on census-track data collection.

Mr. Wiley invites the audience to discuss their questions for the panel further throughout the Summit.

Tags: Broadband Census, Broadband Data

One Response to “Q&A: Morning Panel, “The Big Picture””

1. Drew Clark Says:
   June 12, 2008 at 3:06 pm Thanks for mentioning my question. I appreciate that the FCC recent change on broadband data collection will collect more granular data. However, neither the old-style method, nor the new-style method, will provide publicly available information about the _carriers_ that provide the broadband.

This is important so that consumers have the ability to understand, compare, and take action on their broadband choices.

The Broadband Census Act of America, H.R. 3919 by Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., would address this situation by requiring the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to create a publicly-available map of broadband deployment. The map would feature not only broadband availability, but “each commercial provider or public provider of broadband service capability.”