At the end of January, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) of the federal Department of Commerce released an update of the National Broadband Map.? This searchable map is a public database of information compiled from 20 million records gathered by the states, and shows broadband Internet availability across the United States.? The database is updated every six months, and the current map contains data as of June 20, 2012.? The Broadband Map is also accessible by mobile devices.
What uses are people making of the National Broadband Map?? A user may search the National Broadband Map to see where broadband service is available, the maximum advertised speeds of service, and the names of the service providers.? A person unsatisfied with his or her current broadband service may use the Broadband Map to search for a new provider based on their address.? Businesses are searching the Broadband Map to find geographic office locations with good broadband speeds if their business relies on reliable broadband to do business.? App companies use the Broadband Map to find the best workplace to conduct research for future mobile applications.? Researchers are using the broadband data to perform link broadband statistics with demographic data.
What does the Broadband Map reveal?? Looking at the states by the most coverage by broadband speeds, California ranks ninth, with New Jersey, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Delaware, Maryland and Florida ahead of us.? The bottom ten states or US territories are American Samoa, the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands, Montana, the US Virgin Islands, Alaska, Wyoming, New Mexico, Vermont, Puerto Rico and Kentucky.
Next, I took at a look at Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs ? a core urban area with at least 50,000 in population) in California to see which urban areas had the best speeds.? It turns out the eight best MSAs with 100% covered by speeds defined by the FCC as ?broadband? are? Stockton, Vallejo-Fairfield, Merced, Yuba City, Napa, Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, Modesto, and San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont.? The worst are Hanford-Corcoran (94% coverage), Bakersfield-Delano (97%), San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles (98.3%), and Salinas (98.7%), and Madera-Chowchilla (99.4%).? Clearly, we have more broadband infrastructure work to be done in these areas which have more rural or hard to serve coastal areas.
How does California fare in terms of the number of broadband providers offering services to us?? Thirteen percent of Californians have four wireline broadband providers to choose from, 57% of Californians have three, 21% have two, 5% have only one, and 2% have no wireline broadband providers.? This is significantly better than national averages, where 13% of all Americans have four providers, 38% have three, 31% have two, 10% have only one and 3.5% have none.
In terms of types of broadband technology, 92% of the California population have DSL available to them from the telephone companies, 93% have cable broadband, 15% have fiber, and 99.7% have wireless Internet available.
Also provided with the Broadband Map is a list of the grantees of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) broadband economic stimulus grants for each state.? This information encourages transparency about the federal economic stimulus grants, and allows policymakers, local officials, anchor institutions (such as hospitals, educators, public safety, libraries) and potential users to contact the grantees to see how their ARRA projects may benefit their communities.
Looking at the national implications of the map, NTIA?s Director of State Broadband Initiatives Anne Neville points out that 98% of Americans now have access to wired or wireless broadband at advertised speeds that the FCC defines as broadband.? Only 93% of Americans have access to these basic broadband speeds through wired services (for example, DSL or cable), however.? An alternative for consumers is wireless broadband; the statistics show that 81% of Americans have access to wireless speeds of at least 6 Mbps.? Neville reminds us that the President set a goal of having 98% of Americans having access to 4G services that that the U.S. is only 17 percentage points away from reaching that goal.
The continuing evolution of the National Broadband Map ? and the fact that hundreds of thousands of people are using it (at least 650,000 users by middle of last year) ? shows the power of data.? Given the strong importance of broadband to economic development, it is encouraging to see broadband spreading across every hill and dale, and speeds increasing to meet demand.
Finally, California should also be proud that two California Broadband Task Force participants ? Neville and the FCC?s Geographic Information Officer Michael Byrne ? moved to Washington, D.C. to take jobs at NTIA and the FCC respectively, to work on this project.? They were instrumental in creating the first California broadband map in 2006-2007, and their expertise was tapped to create this first ever Broadband Map for the entire nation.
About Rachelle Chong
Rachelle Chong is a nationally known expert on telecommunications, broadband, wireless communications, cable, digital literacy, public safety communications, renewable energy and smart grid policy. She is a former Commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission (Clinton appointee) and the California Public Utilities Commission (Schwarzenegger appointee). Prior to that, she has been Vice President, Government Affairs for Comcast California Region, Special Counsel for the CA Technology Agency, a partner at two international law firms (Graham & James and Coudert Brothers), and an entrepreneur. Rachelle is delighted to brush off her Journalism degree from Cal Berkeley, and serve as a columnist for Techwire, focusing on federal policies and the San Francisco and Silicon Valley tech/telecom beats.lindsay lohan Ronda Rousey BCS Bowls palestine powerball winner powerball winner Zig Ziglar
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