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Microsoft Network The Internet United States Technology

Microsoft Says the FCC 'Overstates' Broadband Availability In the US (vice.com) 53

Posted by BeauHD from the inaccurate-mess dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Microsoft this week was the latest to highlight the U.S. government's terrible broadband mapping in a filing with the FCC, first spotted by journalist Wendy Davis. In it, Microsoft accuses the FCC of over-stating actual broadband availability and urges the agency to do better. "The Commission's broadband availability data, which underpins FCC Form 477 and the Commission's annual Section 706 report, appears to overstate the extent to which broadband is actually available throughout the nation," Microsoft said in the filing. "For example, in some areas the Commission's broadband availability data suggests that ISPs have reported significant broadband availability (25 Mbps down/3 Mbps up) while Microsoft's usage data indicates that only a small percentage of consumers actually access the Internet at broadband speeds in those areas," Microsoft said.

Similar criticism has long plagued the agency. The FCC's broadband data is received via the form 477 data collected from ISPs. But ISPs have a vested interest in over-stating broadband availability to obscure the sector's competition problems, and the FCC historically hasn't worked very hard to independently verify whether this data is truly accurate. The FCC's methodology has long been criticized as well. As it currently stands, the agency declares an entire ZIP code as "served" with broadband if just one home in an entire census block has it. In its filing, Microsoft "suggested that the Commission's ongoing effort to more accurately measure broadband could be improved by drawing on the FCC's subscription data, along with other broadband data sets from third-parties such as Microsoft, to complement survey data submitted under the current rules."
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Microsoft Says the FCC 'Overstates' Broadband Availability In the US More

Microsoft Says the FCC 'Overstates' Broadband Availability In the US

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  • Double standard (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 21, 2019 @06:27PM (#58313060)

    If I send forms to the government that I fill out purposely wrong for my financial benefit, they'll call it fraud and fine me and possibly throw my ass in jail.

    Why does this not apply here?

  • I know it's fun to MS bash here, but they are doing the right thing.

    And because it's a ${BIG_CORPORATION} complaining instead of public interest groups or ${PEONS}, maybe something will actually get done (but I doubt it)

    • Verizon and AT&T are going to call a few executives at Microsoft and threaten to take their business to Google or Amazon, these executives are then going to call the people who filed the report with the FCC and tell them to abandon it or else, and that will be the end of it.

      The same thing happened with Net Neutrality and it's going to happen again now.

    • Microsoft has a vested interest that just happens to align with our interest in this situation. Faster broadband speeds for everyone would mean more people could use things like their XBox online gaming systems. If you have slow Internet, you're much less likely to use this stuff and their customer base shrinks. So Microsoft stands to profit more if we have better Internet connectivity. It doesn't mean I don't welcome their help, mind you. It just explains why they're on our side in this matter, but will be

    • I know it's fun to MS bash here, but they are doing the right thing.

      Yes, for their business. They're not doing it because it's the right thing, they're doing it because it's the pragmatic thing.

  • Of course. (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by Major_Disorder ( 5019363 )
    Microsoft wants people to move to their cloudy rented OS, and limited broadband is a major stumbling block to that plan.
    • And/or their cloudy rented streaming game thing.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        Cloud ohh all soft and fluffy, when in reality more like a solid concrete suit, where you have no control and they have total control, only slightly worse than Windows anal probe 10. They are such a disgusting company, that even when they are right, they make it impossible to support them. Ohhh lock some one finally worse than the tiny limpers, the FCC, wow you have to go really low to get lower than M$.

  • Internet service providers are universally descriptive in the effectiveness of their connection; up to

    (25 Mbps down/3 Mbps up).

    Technically, and of much greater importance, legally, their advertising has not breached litigious level with this claim from the Madmen.

    • My experience with 3G as a internet source says that once you get 10% packet loss, you can't go anywhere near the capacity the line has to offer.
      With 3G, once you connect you now have a minimum 10% packet loss, 100 ping, and a very unstable download line. This is with both a router with dedicated antennas and cellphone as modem.
      I've also experienced radio internet, where you have receives like the kind used for satellites pointing at a nearby radio tower. Which doesn't really come with any limitations excep

  • I mean, come on, all you speed daemons need to mellow out, just let each character scroll slowly over your screen and let the corporate megalopoly provide you with what it can charge you top dollar for.

  • Here's an idea (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wyattstorch516 ( 2624273 ) on Thursday March 21, 2019 @10:10PM (#58313714)
    Why doesn't Microsoft build a map out of all the locations that don't have broadband access? Must be an easy thing to do if you listen to them.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Why doesn't Microsoft build a map out of all the locations that don't have broadband access? Must be an easy thing to do if you listen to them.

      Bing[o]!

  • Microsoft to FCC (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Dear FCC,

    The telemetry of our products is now making a significant impact on Internet connections.

    Please give MOAR bandwidth.

    Smooches,
    Microsoft Corp.

  • MS, in my opinion, is still a terrible company. But I don’t think they’re wrong on this point. MS wants consumers to have access to better broadband for the company’s goals and not purely altruistic ones. But given what we know already about the FCC’s past inaccurate characterization of broadband, it’s reasonable to assume they can do it again. This time under Pai, I’m not going to assume it’s incompetence; I’m going to assume it’s dishonesy.

  • I'm a software engineer and when I bought my current home, I made the mistake of relying on the broadbandmap.gov website. It showed that I had lots of cable internet options, so you can imagine my surprise when after signing over the next 30 years of my life, that I had... get this, ZERO options available. Satellite doesn't count, because using RDS streaming to stream desktops to your machine kills bandwidth. DSL wasn't even an option, because all of the circuits were being utilized. I was lucky enough

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bobs666 ( 146801 )
      You where lucky! Comcast(X-zero) has a line at the end of my drive way. But my house is 800feet (250m) away from that line. No way in hell they said they would run a line to me. Seems the cable is over extended on a dead end road with about 20 homes here. Well ok one day they said I could pay $7,000.USD for them to put a pop sight in my yard, but took that off the table the next day. So I have a Verizon DSL that gives me a whopping 0.8 Meg Bits per sec for $60.00 USD per month. WOW! In my opinion need som

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