Universal high speed internet starts with better data

The all-important first step in achieving universal high speed internet access in the United States is determining which parts of the country already have access and which don’t. We need to know the full extent of the problem before we can solve it.

The effort to improve our data on high speed internet access suffered a blow recently when the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia denied a lawsuit filed by the Center for Public Integrity seeking zip-code-by-zip-code data from the FCC on high speed connections. Service providers are required to submit this information twice a year to the FCC, but Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle ruled that making it publicly available would be "likely to cause substantial competitive harm" to the telecom companies.

A number of companies and organizations, including Verizon and the United States Telecom Association, filed "friend of the court" briefs to oppose the lawsuit and protect their proprietary information.

While protecting proprietary information is important, it is even more critical that we collect comprehensive data on high speed internet access around the country. For the benefit of all Americans, we need this information to identify the areas that lack high speed internet access and build the infrastructure to connect them.

One way to collect the needed data would be to enact the Broadband Data Improvement Act, introduced in May by Senator Daniel Inouye. This important legislation would create better and more accurate reporting by the FCC on broadband access by nine-digit zip code.

As Senator Inouye said,

The first step in an improved broadband policy is ensuring that we have better data on which to build our efforts. 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.

Judge Rules Against Center Request for Broadband Data Disclosure by ZIP Code (Center for Public Integrity)

Senator Inouye Introduces Broadband Data Improvement Act (Speed Matters)