F2C: What the Data Says

One data expert and one person campaigning for better data presented together at the Freedom to Connect conference.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [April 21, 2008]

Two presenters at the Freedom to Connect conference spoke about what internet users are doing today and asked for better data.

John Horrigan, associate director of research for the Pew Internet Project, presented research data. The project is the best source of free data on the internet (better data is available, but it is very expensive).

Drew Clark, executive director of Broadband Census is leading a cc-licensed effort to obtain real data on deployment and speeds across the U.S. He represents a new way of researching the internet, much needed in the absence of action by the FCC.

Where we are now
Horrigan presented first, taking the long term view. He started with predictions that predate the web, when there was only an internet. Back then, in 1992 (the Mozilla web browser was released to the public in 1993), internet architects were imaging video for services like telehealth. "But the roll out of the broadband infrastructure took longer than had been imagined."

By 2000, we had a many to many internet, but the majority of subscribers used dialup. "Around 2004 was the first time that we picked up in our data that there were more broadband subscribers than dialup. That doesn't mean that the majority of Americans had broadband, just the majority of internet users. About 60 percent of adults had internet access at that time."

In 2004, he said, we started to see media involving user participation, such as blogging, and also increased use of end user research concerning topics such as health care.

Today, he said, Pew finds that 42 percent of people with wireless devices are using a data service of some kind, such as video or text.

But Pew also produced, at the end of last year, a report entitled Public Policy: Why We Don't Know Enough About Broadband in the U.S. It also marked the moment at which half of all Americans finally had broadband at home.

Broadband at home is an opportunity for many. For example, health care providers can now use information networks not just to push information but also to monitor patients.

But in order to realize these gains, policy makers need to know how much broadband is available and where it is. In the Pew study Measuring Broadband:Improving Communications Policymaking through Better Data Collection [.pdf], the authors point to several questions that could be answered if we had better data:

1. Are people more productive when they have broadband?
2. What is the impact of government intervention and is it desirable?
3. What is the impact of broadband on urban and rural development?

These are big questions, and answers to them would be helpful. Luckily, the next speaker, Drew Clark, had a plan.

The data we need
He introduced the Broadband Census. It gathers actual speed data from participating broadband users.

In the back channel, David Isenberg wrote, "this is a GREAT use of crowd-sourcing! Please, everybody, participate. The benefits of your participation will accrue to all, and lead to increasing returns," and we posted the idea to the ISP-Planet Access blog.

The system is still undergoing beta testing, and it failed in my home office. Furthermore, the list of carriers is a drop down menu, which can unfairly discriminate against the smaller carriers—even the smaller national carriers. I have Speakeasy at home and was unable to find it on the drop down menu.

But once the problems are worked out, this is a promising project.

Clark said that the census is intended not only for policy makers but also to provide information to the consumer. He said he hopes to make the broadband market as open as the real estate market, where you can use the internet to find the prices of recent home sales in your neighborhood.

Just forcing the FCC to look at good data, in our opinion, would be success enough.

— End