To Close the Digital Divide, Government Needs Better Data

Earlier this week, New America’s Open Technology Institute (OTI) urged the Administration to improve upon current broadband data collection efforts and to push Congress to fund a new broadband data collection system. In comments filed with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, OTI and a coalition of public interest organizations stressed that broadband availability data is imperative to many government activities, ranging from funding allocation of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) subsidies to the administration of the Census. The current open sources of federal data, in particular the FCC’s Form 477 data, are unreliable and flawed—making it difficult for the government to effectively target resources to communities on the wrong side of the digital divide or to make policy decisions that rely on accurate broadband availability data.

As a longstanding advocate of data-driven policymaking, OTI believes it is particularly important that the federal government collects data about why some Americans do not have access to, or have not adopted, broadband internet. Cost is a major barrier to broadband adoption, but the government collects virtually no data about the cost of internet service plans. In its comments, OTI urged NTIA to collect this data, as well as data about broadband performance. Measurement Lab (M-Lab), a broadband health test project in which OTI is a partner, provides a good example of both how to measure broadband speeds and how to collect pricing data.

Finally, OTI argued that the federal government needs more resources to create an effective system to collect broadband data. Congress recently appropriated $7.5 million for NTIA to assess the state of broadband data, but this pales in comparison to the $50 million that the Administration requested for this effort, and the $350 million that Congress appropriated in 2009 for the creation of the now-defunct National Broadband Map. OTI urged NTIA to ask for additional funding.