Cell network coverage maps have always been dubiously accurate in the US, and even the ones released by the Federal Communication Commission in 2021 come with a ton of asterisks. A company called Ranlytics is hoping to make a much more accurate picture by attaching equipment to some of the mail trucks that are already driving to many locations in the US to deliver parcels and letters. The data it collects will provide info on coverage quality “in a given town, on a given road, even at a given address” says the company’s CEO Keith Sheridan. Ranlytics says it’s working with the US Postal Service to measure AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon’s 4G and 5G networks in Seattle and that it’s already producing “the most detailed available” coverage maps for select areas in the city. The company also says that USPS vehicles repeating routes several days of the week lets it track coverage changes over time, finding both places where coverage doesn’t exist and where there is coverage but a lackluster user experience. According to Sheridan, the detailed data Ranlytics collects could help carriers diagnose and optimize their networks, in ways even their own data couldn’t. (He says the company’s equipment captures 800 metrics across all in-use radio bands, 50 times a second.) However, there are potential limits to Ranlytics’ approach. For one, equipment attached to USPS vehicles will obviously only gather data on roads and where mail is delivered — that could exclude large swaths of land like national parks or rural homes where the mail may not be delivered directly to the home.

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the importance of broadband internet connectivity became glaringly obvious for many people. As offices, schools, and businesses closed and stayed shuttered for weeks and in some cases months, many people worked or learned remotely – and continue to do so. Now is a critical time to address the issue of community broadband deployment in New York – and at the same time, enable the transition to clean energy. In fall 2022, the National Grid partnered with the Development Authority of the North Country (DANC) and Southern Tier Network (STN) to submit two proposals to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) for middle-mile infrastructure funds to expand broadband access and affordability in parts of New York, while building an improved, digital network across the state’s electrical grid. The proposals, if chosen by NTIA, would be funded by money set aside by a bipartisan bill passed in late 2021, the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). The partnerships between DANC, STN, and National Grid bring together two different sets of expertise: DANC and STN bring years of experience delivering critical, open-access, middle-mile broadband services to homes and businesses across their region, and National Grid owns and operates hundreds of miles of utility pole infrastructure that help deliver those critical services and provides electricity for thousands of residents of upstate New York. The two projects would bring connectivity to nearly 21,000 unserved households in upstate and western New York and benefit another 2,500 underserved households. Combined, the projects will deploy more than 650 miles of fiber optic cable, using existing National Grid distribution infrastructure, across underserved regions of New York. In addition, these projects will provide resilience for tribal-owned broadband entities and National Defense facilities in these areas.

[Mark Thompson is the director of grid modernization at National Grid and Jeff Gasper is the CEO of Southern Tier Network.]