Comcast Endorses NCTA Shapefile Proposal to Revise Form 477 Broadband Data Reporting
Comcast wants the FCC to adopt a shapefile approach to updating its Form 477 data collection to inform future broadband maps backed by NCTA, it said in a filing posted Thursday in docket 11-10. "The submission of polygon shapefiles would…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
significantly increase the accuracy of the reported data because polygon shapefiles are more closely tied to a provider's actual service area than census blocks," it said. Comcast executives told the FCC in a meeting last July that "a mapping approach based on polygons or service availability can be implemented more quickly than an address-based approach" (see 1807160061). USTelecom supports an address-based location fabric approach to broadband mapping (see 1903220036). Comcast said broadband maps based on polygon shapefiles could be "created in time to determine the areas eligible for the Rural Digital Opportunities Fund." The Competitive Carriers Association asked the FCC Thursday to re-evaluate Form 477 data collection requirements for wireless broadband coverage to standardize strength measurements, utilize a cell edge probability of 90 percent or higher, adopt a cell loading factor of at least 5 percent on the downlink, and ensure clutter factors match local environments, CCA said in a news release.