Slate: FCC Needs More Fixes, Fewer Excuses

The FCC can get upset sometimes. Especially when it spends $350 million on a map that has wrong information in it and then gets called out for it.

In a recent follow up to his May 18 article in Slate, "Map to Nowhere," which said that the FCC's $350 million broadband map of the United States was basically useless because it relied on ISP-provided data rather than user data on true internet speeds, Sascha Meinrath of New America Foundation counters the FCC's criticism that Meinrath missed the point that this is the largest, most detailed broadband map ever created. Apparently, the FCC wants to have it both ways: the map includes maximum internet speeds as advertised by ISPs, by census block, but the FCC also has a disclaimer that says they have no responsibility for the accuracy of the information, which is probably wise because the data are mostly wrong.
This is one of the issues we will be exploring in the documentary, "Broadband Blindness."