AT&T’s fix for the broadband mapping problem? Get everyone’s address

AT&T is proposing a potential solution to our broadband mapping problem: Get everyone’s address. 

“While it may seem logical to map where broadband is available in order to determine where it is lacking, collecting data only on deployed areas does not provide the information necessary to effectively promote deployment to areas that still have no broadband,” AT&T wrote to the Federal Communications Commission. “To support the deployment of broadband to unserved areas, it is also necessary to have detailed information about the locations of homes and businesses in those areas. As AT&T and others have found, this type of information is not readily available, but it is critical to accurately estimating the cost of deployment, designing efficient networks, and assessing when adequate deployment has been achieved.”

Specifically, AT&T argued that the FCC should consider “an address-based approach to fill the data gaps. The result of the approach we proposed would be a data source that enables the Commission and other policymakers to more accurately target and direct funding to the communities and locations that do not have broadband.” 

AT&T laid out a lengthy process that the operator said would ultimately result in a map containing every address in the country as well as what kind of telecom service was available at that address:

• All telecom operators should submit whatever street address information they have to the FCC,
• Data that would then be supplemented with data from public resources and a crowd-sourcing campaign,
• FCC should identify the latitude and longitude for each street address in the master address database,
• FCC should allow consumers to improve the database by adding their own data,
• Fixed and wireless telecom operators would “submit data that ‘overlays’ the foundational address data to identify areas where they currently can provide broadband service, including the technology and speed.”