Connected Nation: No Bid for KY RFP

So Connected Nation opted not to submit a proposal in response to the Kentucky Commonwealth Office of Technology’s broadband mapping RFP.

Seems the Commonwealth is asking bidders to turn around a statewide map, uh, yesterday. Well, in two months, which is effectively the same thing. From the Connected Nation blog:

Kentucky’s RFP for broadband mapping calls for a submission of a substantially complete dataset by Nov. 1, 2009, a full three months earlier than the timeline laid out in the federal guidelines....Connected Nation’s wealth of experience in creating broadband maps shows that this timeline is simply unrealistic.

I'll take a look at the responses to the non-response soon.

Lots of Takers

So the basic stats are in. The first round of applications for broadband stimulus funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 have been received by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and the Rural Utilities Service. A press release from NTIA provides the rundown:

they received almost 2,200 applications requesting nearly $28 billion in funding for proposed broadband projects reaching all 50 U.S. states and territories and the District of Columbia

That $28 billion is roughly seven times the amount (~$4 billion) available during the first round.

Trust But Verify

I read a piece in Business Wire with great interest on the entry of the Broadband Information Services Consortium (BISC) into the broadband mapping fray. After all the heat that Connected Nation has gotten in recent months for being the paid handmaiden of industry, I'm curious to see what a large-scale alternative might look like and how to build a better mousetrap.

I hasten to add that mapping is crucial. But as I've written it is only the first (or perhaps second) step in improving broadband access. While several states have contracted with Connected Nation for mapping services alone, I'd wager the greatest results in broadband deployment are those that take advantage of the broader community mobilization such as that which has occurred in Kentucky and several other states. That is because a map is necessary to point out gaps in service. But those gaps exist because large provider don't see near-term opportunities to recoup their investment. So mobilizing local knowledge and forging local coalitions is essential if anything is going to change in those areas.

And that's where the real power of Connected Nation's approach lies.

So what does BISC offer? It's really hard to tell. Here are a few clues from the Biz Wire piece:

"...provides states with customized solutions to broadband mapping to address the full supply-and-demand broadband continuum..."

"... ensures the most accurate, fully verified and up-to-date information available for broadband mapping..."

"...“Our collective experience and platform enable us to compile the multiple layers of real-time data of location and serviceability, either as a full-service approach or as a complement to state efforts....”

"Broadband maps created with geographic information system (GIS) technology provide an advantage to states..."

These notions all sound great. But one question remains: where do the data that form the base map actually come from? The Biz Wire piece doesn't say.

Connected Nation has been roundly criticized for accepting as gospel the information that they receive from broadband providers. That's a fair line of attack. Why should we trust providers, particularly when the data they release comes with strings attached?

As I've written previously, while they've not called it "crowdsourcing" in the past (what not hip enough, dudes?), Connected Nation has encouraged public validation of its base map. The information that providers contribute is not cast in stone, but is viewed as a starting point. Connected Nation has provided a mechanism for consumers to question the accuracy of the map, soliciting inputs from the public as means of improving on what providers are willing to share. For example, in Kentucky alone, over 4000 inquiries have been made based on the data providers have made, improving the quality and accuracy of the map as a whole.

The BISC plan seems to make heavy use of crowdsourcing (which amounts to polling or surveying the public) and extrapolating from the poll to estimate conditions over all. This is apparently the sum total of the approach taken by Broadband Census, which begins with a blank slate and maps on the basis of voluntary polling (not sure how many data points the Census has for the whole nation, but I've been told it's fewer than the 4000 Connected Nation has for Kentucky alone (as a corrective, I should, add, to a base map drawn from provider data)). As any statistician will explain, the fewer data points you have, the larger the error terms (i.e., the more the inaccuracy). So if you start from a blank slate it takes a lot of data points to generate anything meaningful.

Connected Nation's maps are not perfect. Nor are they intended to be. Nor could they be. Broadband deployment changes rapidly. And providers (for all sorts of reasons, and not just the big ones) don't provide entirely accurate spatial depictions of their deployments.

The big question is: Where does the map start? From a blank slate (in which case crowdsourcing is likely to contain lots of inaccuracy)? Or from a flawed, incomplete, temporally-bounded map of provider data (in which case crowdsourcing can and, in Connected Nation's case, already does make a big difference)?

Although they claim to be operating transparently, we don't yet know where BISC's base map comes from. I'll withhold judgment until I do.

So Everyone's Clueless?

So how do you build a national plan for broadband?

It seems no one is offering many specifics.

This piece from John Eggerton from Multichannel news is pretty alarming:

The Federal Communications Commission's broadband czar is not impressed with the agency's submissions from the public and industry on the grand broadband plan, suggesting there is too much pie in the sky and not enough pie chart on the page.

How anemic are the offerings?

He ended his talk by literally begging for better input. "We really need your best ideas. And we need them quickly and clearly."

So Google's effort crowdsourcing the National Broadband Plan hardly inspires confidence, nor does it bespeak any national consensus. Now the FCC's Broadband Czar is begging for better public input, too.

Suppose this plea puts us all on the spot...

Crowdsourcing and the Broadband Map

Drew Clark of BroadbandCensus.com has a great idea:

One of the things that BroadbandCensus.com has been doing since our launch, in January 2008, is to provide a crowdsourced, public and transparent collection of data about local broadband Speeds, Prices, Availability, Reliability and Competition. We call this the Broadband ‘SPARC.’

The basic idea is to get as much information from as many sources as possible to create sort of a collage, a national broadband map extrapolated from an enormous set of data points, ideally from lots and lots of individuals. There's a lot to be said for such a bottom-up approach, setting aside the initial challenge of getting folks to participate. The main challenge is that the starting point is a blank slate.

The question, really, is when and how such a crowdsourced resource should inform planning and decision making.

Clark has been outspoken in his criticism of Connected Nation's approach to broadband mapping, offering crowdsourcing as an alternative.

Yet, it seems there's less light between Connected Nation's approach and BroadbandCensus.com's. Indeed, Connected Nation has placed public verification of their mapping results at the forefront. Though they've not referred to the effort as crowdsourcing, I suppose they could.

Connected Nation brokers arrangements with multiple providers offering to protect what those providers believe is proprietary data. In other words, Connected Nation works with providers, accepting the data that they are given. The basic map begins, then, as the map that providers would have us see.

There are multiple reasons to be skeptical of this base map as an outcome. But it is only the first step.

Some providers dramatically overstate their coverage, though it's not always who you might think. Many suspect that Verizon and Comcast claim availability where it is not to make it appear that the broadband challenge is smaller than it may appear. But, according to my conversations with Connected Nation's mapping team, many small providers claim universal access in their service areas. Anyone who claims to be lacking service can get it simply by asking. Whether the data come from large or small providers, there's no way to challenge the assertions providers make other than through address by address verification.

So without attributing motives, we can stipulate one simple fact: for numerous reasons (reticence of providers to cough up accurate data as well as evolutionary nature of their networks) no national broadband map can be accurate.

And given these manifold flaws, the best verifier of any map is the public itself. Hence the importance of some sort of crowdsourcing effort as a corrective to any national map (whether prepared by Connected Nation, some other private sector entity, the providers themselves, or the FCC). In fact, Connected Nation realizes the importance of verification and has, as it happens, probably gotten more inputs from its own rather quiet crowdsourcing efforts than BroadbandCensus.com.

A Google Opinions on Broadband

So Google is encouraging folks to "Submit your ideas for a National Broadband Plan". At the time of this writing,

1,719 people have submitted 440 ideas and cast 35,988 votes...

As one might imagine, there's a lot of chaff, but there are some solid ideas. It's worth taking a look if only to get a sense of the breadth of opinion (and misinformation).

A few examples:

"Investigate ways to increase the span of wireless networks and make it more advantageous for local governments to provide free wireless internet."
swankestZACK, Louisville, KY

So these are probably both good goals. Longer range wireless networks. Free wifi. Awesome. But the vision isn't matched with tactics. Make it advantageous? Uh, great, but how?

"Make Broadband a Utility. Internet is like phone service, water service, or electricity. It is quickly becoming almost necessary to have it. Since Internet itself is a service, it should become a Utility with no filtering."
Navarr, Spring, TX

So the key for the National Broadband Strategy should be definitional? (I.e., redefining Internet as utility?) What difference would this make at a practical level?

I could go on. But suffice it to say there are a lot of well-intended ideas. But how these would (or will) fit together as a coherent strategy remains to be seen. My hat's off to Google for providing the space to try.

And there are a slightly more articulated visions:

"Encourage investment from diverse companies in broadband infrastructure and support innovative public-private collaborations to reach remote, unserved parts of our nation, so everyone is connected to an increasingly robust Internet."
NextGenWeb, Washington, DC

Okay, sure, so you'd expect NextGenWeb to have a reasonably lucid vision. Of course, like the other ideas, this is a vision, not an implementation plan.

Still this might be an interesting forum. It'll be interesting to see how many ideas and voices will be raised at the Google site.

Henchmen?

So don't know if you've seen it, but techdirt has an illuminating piece by Paul Masnick, who is largely sympathetic with Art Brodsky's (valedictory?!) rant aginst Connected Nation.

Masnick first makes this overwrought claim about Connected Nation:

First, it's just a "mapping" organization and it's run by the telcos themselves, allowing them to continue to fudge the data to make markets look a lot more competitive than they really are. And, yet, thanks to all the political love that goes out to Connected Nation, it looks like they're about to get hundreds of millions of dollars in broadband stimulus money.

Of course, it's disappointing that Connected Nation continues to be seen by its critics as merely a front for the telcos. But the larger disappointment is, without belaboring the point, this characterization of Connected Nation's work completely fails to acknowledge that Connected Nation believes mapping to be only the first step in improving broadband. In states like Tennessee, Ohio, and Kentucky the map has only been stage one run in tandem with statewide, county-by-county planning efforts that foster local empowerment and decision-making focused both on improving demand and channeling that demand toward feasible, meaningful, local improvements in supply.

After swallowing the bromide against Connected Nation hook, line, and sinker without critically engaging the organization's actual work or its results, Masnick then ends with this little bit of confusion:

I certainly agree that better data is important, but I have to admit I'm still somewhat confused as to what real problem we end up solving with mapping alone? Yes, it will give us more data to figure out just what the current situation is when it comes to broadband deployment, but that's got little to do with actually improving our broadband infrastructure.

Ahem, welcome to the party.

And if you'd look beyond your suspicion and prejudicial rage against Connected Nation, then you'd seen the organization's actual focus lies beyond the maps, too. The map is merely the first step in improving conditions on the ground. And those conditions will be vastly improved by enlisting the support and efforts of local leaders and residents and leveraging any and all willing assets, broadband platforms, and potential solutions. Not by throwing out the baby with the bathwater as Connected Nation's critics so often seem willing to do.