The Verge, September 24: How bad maps are ruining American broadband
Like countless other American cities, Cleveland, Ohio, suffers from a lack of meaningful broadband competition. With only one or two largely apathetic ISPs to choose from, high prices, slow speeds, limited deployment, and customer service headaches are the norm. It’s particularly bad in the city’s poorer, urban areas. AT&T has avoided upgrading lower-income minority neighborhoods at the same rate as higher-income parts of the city, despite decades of subsidies and tax breaksintended to prevent that from happening, according to a report by the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA). Even in more affluent neighborhoods, users are lucky if they have an ISP that can deliver speeds over 50 Mbps.
US customers pay some of the highest prices for broadband in the developed world, and broadband availability is sketchy at best for millions of Americans. But instead of tackling that problem head on, the FCC is increasingly looking the other way. Worse, the FCC’s methodology declares an entire ZIP code as “served” with broadband if just one home in an entire census block has it.
In Cleveland, the FCC’s map insists that city residents have at least six ISPs to choose from. But if you look closer, you’ll find that Cleveland residents really only have one option (Charter’s Spectrum) if they want a good connection.
In policy conversations, ISP lobbyists lean heavily on the FCC’s flawed data to falsely suggest that American broadband is dirt cheap and ultra competitive, despite real-world evidence to the contrary. On the wider policy level, having accurate data is incredibly important as the government determines which areas are in need of broadband subsidies.
