New Broadband Mapping Approach Won't Help Rural US, CCG Says
The FCC was right to shed a census block-centric approach to measuring broadband deployment, but its new mapping approach adopted last week (see 1908010007) won't mean much for most of rural America, CCG Consulting President Doug Dawson blogged Monday. He…
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said the rural broadband gap comes largely from big telcos' neglected copper networks. He said the inherent challenges in accurately mapping DSL and fixed wireless technologies means the new maps "are still going to be terrible in the places we most care about." He said the FCC's reliance on those maps for decisions like awarding grant money will still hurt rural America. Rather than caring about mapping, the U.S. needs to focus on policies like grants to replace copper with fiber. "We don't need a map to know that is good policy," he said.