National broadband map gets an update; data scrutiny likely to continue

The National Telecommunications and Information Association (NTIA) announced in a blog post on Friday that it has again updated its government-funded interactive national broadband map, which was first unveiled in February of 2011. According to the NTIA, the map is rendered from a database of more than 20 million records and aims to show an in-depth picture of broadband availability across the U.S. The map is updated on a biannual basis with data contributed from nearly 1,800 Internet service providers.

Despite significant effort and $300 million in government cash, the NTIA’s broadband mapping project has come under fire for inaccuracies and incomplete data in the last year. As Karl Bode at DSLReports noted last June, many companies believe they could have done a better job charting broadband availability, and at least one such organization, ID Insight, has published research pointing out specific instances where the NTIA information is incorrect.

Many users have found deficiencies as well. For example, searching on a specific address using the NTIA database results in a list of broadband providers offering service in the surrounding Census Block. Unfortunately, providers don’t necessarily offer service to every household in a Block, meaning search results can be skewed. Verizon, for one, may offer FiOS Internet in one neighborhood, but not the next one over. If those two neighborhoods are in the same Census Block, then households in both are listed as having access to high-speed FiOS broadband.

The NTIA’s attempt to map broadband availability stems from the federal government’s 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which set aside $4.7 billion in spending for a Broadband Technology Opportunities Program. The overall goal of the program is to “develop and expand broadband services to rural and underserved areas and improve access to broadband by public safety agencies.” In the NTIA's recent blog post, the organization requested ongoing input from Internet users in an effort to continue improving its broadband map going forward.

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com