[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
BROADBAND MAPPING: SMALL CARRIER PERSPECTIVES ON A PATH FORWARD
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CONTRACTING AND INFRASTRUCTURE
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS
UNITED STATES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD
JUNE 25, 2019
__________
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Small Business Committee Document Number 116-030
Available via the GPO Website: www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
36-775 WASHINGTON : 2019
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HOUSE COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS
NYDIA VELAZQUEZ, New York, Chairwoman
ABBY FINKENAUER, Iowa
JARED GOLDEN, Maine
ANDY KIM, New Jersey
JASON CROW, Colorado
SHARICE DAVIDS, Kansas
JUDY CHU, California
MARC VEASEY, Texas
DWIGHT EVANS, Pennsylvania
BRAD SCHNEIDER, Illinois
ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York
ANTONIO DELGADO, New York
CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania
ANGIE CRAIG, Minnesota
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio, Ranking Member
AUMUA AMATA COLEMAN RADEWAGEN, American Samoa, Vice Ranking Member
TRENT KELLY, Mississippi
TROY BALDERSON, Ohio
KEVIN HERN, Oklahoma
JIM HAGEDORN, Minnesota
PETE STAUBER, Minnesota
TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee
ROSS SPANO, Florida
JOHN JOYCE, Pennsylvania
Adam Minehardt, Majority Staff Director
Melissa Jung, Majority Deputy Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Kevin Fitzpatrick, Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
Hon. Jared Golden................................................ 1
Hon. Pete Stauber................................................ 2
WITNESSES
Mr. Dan Stelpflug, Director, Operations, Engineering &
Technology, Allamakee Clayton Electric Cooperative, Postville,
IA, testifying on behalf of the National Rural Electric
Cooperative Association........................................ 5
Mr. Tim Donovan, Senior Vice President, Legislative Affairs,
Competitive Carriers Association, Washington, DC............... 7
Ms. Beth Osler, Director, Customer and Industry Relations,
UniTel, Inc., Unity, ME, testifying on behalf of the NTCA--The
Rural Broadband Association.................................... 9
Mr. Jason Hendricks, Chief Regulatory Officer, Range Companies,
Forsyth, MT, testifying on behalf of the WTA--Advocates for
Rural Broadband................................................ 10
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Mr. Dan Stelpflug, Director, Operations, Engineering &
Technology, Allamakee Clayton Electric Cooperative,
Postville, IA, testifying on behalf of the National Rural
Electric Cooperative Association........................... 24
Mr. Tim Donovan, Senior Vice President, Legislative Affairs,
Competitive Carriers Association, Washington, DC........... 39
Ms. Beth Osler, Director, Customer and Industry Relations,
UniTel, Inc., Unity, ME, testifying on behalf of the NTCA--
The Rural Broadband Association............................ 51
Mr. Jason Hendricks, Chief Regulatory Officer, Range
Companies, Forsyth, MT, testifying on behalf of the WTA--
Advocates for Rural Broadband.............................. 58
Questions for the Record:
None.
Answers for the Record:
None.
Additional Material for the Record:
USTelecom.................................................... 64
BROADBAND MAPPING: SMALL CARRIER PERSPECTIVES ON A PATH FORWARD
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TUESDAY, JUNE 25, 2019
House of Representatives,
Committee on Small Business,
Subcommittee on Contracting and Infrastructure,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in
Room 2360, Rayburn House Office Building. Hon. Jared Golden
[chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Golden, Finkenauer, Veasey,
Balderson, Hagedorn, and Stauber.
Chairman GOLDEN. Good morning. The Committee will come to
order. Thank you all for joining us this morning and a special
thanks to the witnesses for being here today.
Reliable and affordable high-speed broadband connections
are a vital aspect of doing business in this day and age.
Sadly, at least 25 million Americans still lack access to high-
speed internet, many of which live in remote parts of our
country. We all realize it is more difficult and expensive to
build out broadband networks in these areas, but that is no
excuse to leave them behind.
To do so results in a divide between our urban and rural
economies that reduces economic opportunity for millions of
Americans and small businesses. In fact, more than 26 percent
of Americans in rural America lack access to high-speed
broadband compared to 1.7 percent in urban areas. And people
that live in these towns across the country notice: 58 percent
of rural Americans believe that lack of access to high-speed
internet is a problem in their hometowns.
In my home district, at least 37,000 people don't have
access to a wired, high-speed internet connection and 9,000
don't have a wired connection at all. As we will discover
through this hearing, the problem is likely much worse as these
numbers come from counts that overestimate both coverage and
speeds available in rural communities.
To achieve parity across the country Congress must work to
coordinate Federal resources and make commonsense investments
in targeted infrastructure projects. To do this the Federal
Government must have accurate data to ensure that funds and
resources are efficiently allocated to expand coverage to
unserved areas.
Effectively mapping our current broadband is a necessary
and obvious step. However, the current state of broadband
mapping is unacceptable at best, I would say. There is strong
evidence that the percentage of Americans without broadband
access is much higher than the FCC's numbers indicate. Even the
FCC Chairman is on record recognizing the lack of accurate and
granular data.
The Chairman has stated he will introduce an order in
August to address broadband mapping. In doing so, it is
imperative that the FCC develop rules that require large
carriers to submit reports with more granular data. For
example, instead of using census blocks, carriers can submit
coverage reports based on much smaller geographic or submit
shapefiles instead of Form 477 data.
But great granularity is not a silver bullet. Robust and
in-depth authentication of broadband coverage data needs to be
conducted to assess whether communities are truly connected. In
Maine, along with Minnesota, we are using publicly available
data to develop more accurate maps on behalf of the Federal
Government.
Members of this committee have heard from constituents
across the country about slow download speeds and spotty
connections. My home state of Maine has the second slowest
broadband speeds in the country. Without access to reliable
internet, small firms in rural areas miss opportunities to
connect with new customers and can't take advantage of cost-
saving tools, like digital payment processing and online
distribution services.
Finally, children in rural areas also need access to high-
speed broadband to utilize cutting-edge educational tools so we
can usher in the next generation of tech-savvy entrepreneurs.
This is something the Ranking Member, Congressman Stauber, and
I talked about in a field hearing in Minnesota. And this has
actually in his area and I am sure in mine, too, become a bit
of a real estate issue. It is something that is critically
important. People want to buy homes and live in areas with
access to broadband internet.
We can no longer accept that rural means digitally
disconnected. Private investment is not enough and inaccurate
maps are a major barrier to the efficient expansion of
broadband networks across the country.
I hope that today's discussion will shed light on ways to
improve data and accountability in broadband mapping. I look
forward to working with my colleagues in Congress toward
developing accurate broadband maps and bridging the digital
divide.
I thank each of the witnesses for joining us today and I
look forward to your testimony.
I would now like to yield to the Ranking Member, Mr.
Stauber, for his opening statement.
Mr. STAUBER. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning and thank
all of you for being with us today. I appreciate your time and
your interest in our hearing.
As we all have witnessed in the last decade or so, modern
communications technology has provided infinite opportunities
for small businesses and particularly new and exciting ones to
small firms located in rural America. The growth of the
telecommunications industry and the advances in the way we
communicate with each other in recent history has been nothing
short of amazing.
Because of this rapid advancement we have seen a revolution
of sorts for small businesses, as well. Small firms communicate
with potential buyers around the world. Family farmers use
wireless technologies to monitor and maximize their crop
production. Entrepreneurs can launch a website from just about
anywhere and, with the use of the now commonplace smartphone,
can accept payments from anywhere there is a wireless signal.
Most importantly, these new technologies provide the gateway
and opportunity for economic growth and job creation,
especially in rural America.
Today, more than 24 million Americans lack access to high-
speed internet, the vast majority of whom live in rural
communities. In my home state of Minnesota specifically, over
400,000 people do not have access and those that are lucky
enough to have access may only have one provider to choose
from.
Just last month, Chairman Golden visited my district and
held a field hearing with me, with my fellow committee members,
and Minnesotans Jim Hagedorn and Angie Craig on the digital
divide and how we can work to ensure better broadband access to
rural areas. At that hearing we discussed that in a world where
choice seems abundant, many Minnesotans are left optionless.
When comparing urban and rural broadband deployment, 97.9
percent of urban American has access to both and mobile
broadband while only 68.6 percent of rural citizens have that
same access. We cannot continue to leave our constituents
behind just because they choose to live in rural communities.
Since 2011, the National Broadband Map has been a tool for
consumers, businesses, policymakers, and researchers by
providing a searchable way to find out who is offering
broadband, what types of broadband they are offering, and where
they are offering it from.
But the mapping platform has become dated as has the
coverage data. The current map has been widely criticized for
overestimating how many people have access to high-speed
internet. Because the FCC uses the map to determine where to
devote billions of dollars in broadband investment, the issue
has drawn intense scrutiny from people who say they are being
overlooked.
At an oversight hearing earlier this month in the Senate,
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced that in August he will
circulate an order to update the method in which the FCC
constructs the map to make it more accurate and be a better
indicator of where we should invest.
Today our panel of telecom providers will help us
understand what goes into creating the map and how we can make
it more accurate to ensure we invest Federal dollars in the
right place. Thank you all again.
And, Mr. Chair, I yield back.
Chairman GOLDEN. Thank you. The gentleman yields back. And
if Committee members have opening statements, we would ask that
they be submitted for the record.
I would like to take just a quick minute to explain the
timing rules. Each witness will get 5 minutes to testify and
members will get 5 minutes for questioning. There is a lighting
system to assist you. The green light comes on when you begin,
the yellow light means there is 1 minute remaining, don't panic
when that happens, and the red light comes on when you are out
of time. And we ask that you stay within that timeframe to the
best of your ability. We won't shut you down immediately if you
have a quick point that you need to wrap up, please feel free
to do so.
And I would now like to introduce our witnesses for today's
panel. Our first witness is Mr. Tim Donovan, the senior vice
president of legislative affairs at the Competitive Carriers
Association, the leading association representing competitive
wireless telecommunications providers. Prior to joining CCA he
served as the manager of government affairs for the Direct
Marketing Association, where his primary responsibility was
supporting the advocacy goals of the direct marketing
community. Mr. Donovan holds a bachelor's degree from
Providence College where he studied English and political
science. Welcome, Mr. Donovan.
Our second witness hails from Postville, Iowa, and will be
introduced by the gentlelady Ms. Finkenauer from Iowa, who is
the Chairwoman on the Subcommittee on Rural Development,
Agriculture, Trade, and Entrepreneurship. I would now like to
yield to Ms. Finkenauer to introduce our second witness.
Ms. FINKENAUER. Well, thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you
for inviting me to be a part of your Subcommittee today. This
is actually not one of the ones I sit on and so it means a lot
to me to get to be here and introduce one of my constituents
from Iowa's First Congressional District.
I am very proud to introduce Dan Stelpflug, who is on the
front lines working to provide high-speed broadband service to
families and small businesses in Iowa. Mr. Stelpflug is the
director of operations, engineering, and technology at
Allamakee Clayton Electric Cooperative. Mr. Stelpflug manages
the AC Skyways Broadband Division, responsible for deployment
of new technologies and the overall strategic vision of the
department.
Unfortunately, many rural communities lack high-speed
broadband because of the cost to carriers to provide in these
areas. In turn, this hits small businesses that need high-speed
broadband to identify new customers, sell their products, and
create jobs in our communities, which are very important,
especially in our rural areas.
Federal grant and loan programs are designed to deploy
broadband to underserved areas. To target the assistance to
where it is needed, though, we do need accurate maps that are
drawn from granular data and vetted by robust processes. I look
forward to hearing Mr. Stelpflug's perspective on this issue,
which is so important, as I said, to our small businesses back
home in Northeast Iowa.
Mr. Stelpflug, thank you for coming all this way to
Washington and making sure that your voice is heard.
And I just want to also take the moment to say thank you to
all of our witnesses here today. Having you guys on the record
telling Washington why this matters, it means so much and helps
us do our job in a better way. Thank you, guys.
And with that, I yield back.
Chairman GOLDEN. Thank you very much. And our third witness
is Ms. Beth Osler, who hails from Unity, Maine, in my home
district. It is Waldo County. Ms. Osler is the director of
customer and industry relations at UniTel, which serves
approximately 5,000 homes in rural Maine. She was born and
raised in Bangor, Maine, and later attended Bates College. We
are both alums of Bates College.
She was first employed as a cordboard operator for New
England Telephone Company. Over the next 50 years she has held
positions of increasing responsibility in operator services,
customer service, regulatory affairs, and legislative affairs
for both large and small telecommunications companies in Maine
and in New Hampshire. Welcome, Ms. Osler. It is a pleasure to
have you here.
And I now would like to yield to our Ranking Member, Mr.
Stauber, to introduce our final witness.
Mr. STAUBER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. And our final
witness today is Jason Hendricks, the chief regulatory officer
for the Range Companies. He serves on the board of directors
for WTA, Advocates for Rural Broadband, for which he is
testifying on behalf of today, and the Colorado
Telecommunications Association. He is also the past president
of the Wyoming Telecommunications Association. And Jason has
been in the telecommunications industry for 23 years. He began
his career at the Illinois Commerce Commission, then consulted
for JVNW Consulting before joining the Range Companies.
Jason has a master of arts degree in political studies from
the University of Illinois Springfield, a master of science
degree in economics from the University of Wyoming, and a
bachelor of science degree in economics from Penn State. Thank
you for being with us today.
Mr. Chair, I yield back.
Chairman GOLDEN. Thank you very much. We are now going to
go ahead and move to opening testimony from our panel. We are
going to go out of order very quickly because Congresswoman
Finkenauer has to get over to a Transportation Committee
hearing, but wants to hear the opening remarks for Mr.
Stelpflug. So, sir, we will now recognize you for 5 minutes.
STATEMENTS OF DAN STELPFLUG, DIRECTOR, OPERATIONS, ENGINEERING
& TECHNOLOGY, ALLAMAKEE CLAYTON ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE; TIM
DONOVAN, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS,
COMPETITIVE CARRIERS ASSOCIATION; BETH OSLER, DIRECTOR,
CUSTOMER AND INDUSTRY RELATIONS, UNITEL, INC.; JASON HENDRICKS,
CHIEF REGULATORY OFFICER,RANGE COMPANIES
STATEMENT OF DAN STELPFLUG
Mr. STELPFLUG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Stauber, and members of the Committee for opportunity to be
here to share our small business perspective on the importance
of more granular and accurate broadband mapping.
My name is Dan Stelpflug and I am the director of
operations, engineering, and technology at Allamakee Clayton
Electric Cooperative in Postville, Iowa. We provide electricity
to less than 10,000 rural consumers across 8 Northeast Iowa
counties near the Wisconsin and Minnesota border. The ACEC is
part of a broader electric cooperative industry represented by
the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association that serves
1 in 8 Americans and covers 56 percent of the U.S. landmass. In
part because cooperatives are led by and belong to the
communities they serve, there is an increasing number of
electric cooperatives studying whether they should be part of
the solution to close the digital divide. More than 100
electric cooperatives, including my own, already are working
toward meaningful and diverse solutions to bridge the digital
divide and jumpstart local economies.
In addition to my operations and engineering
responsibilities at ACEC, I oversee AC Skyways, the broadband
division of our cooperative. We have been delivering broadband
to Northeast Iowa residents since 2014 using a combination of
fiber optic lines and fixed wireless technologies, a ``fiber to
the section, wireless to the home'' business model. The primary
impetus for ACEC's investment in its broadband network was and
continues to be to serve members who lack affordable options to
access internet with at least 25 megabit per second download
speeds.
My cooperative's experience with shortcomings and
inaccuracies of existing federally available broadband mapping
data is from the perspective of a broadband provider seeking
opportunities for Federal funding and as a provider working to
meeting Federal Communications Commission's requirements as an
FCC Rural Broadband Experiment grant recipient.
Our first experience with inaccurate data occurred while
working to comply with Federal grant guidelines. In 2014, we
received a grant from the FCC's RBE Program. The grant was
awarded for us to reach 665 potential customers in 209 census
blocks with broadband. The potential customer total was
identified by FCC data that was assumed to be correct. While
preparing progress reports required by the FCC, we discovered a
discrepancy in the number of potential customers. Instead of
665 locations as indicated by FCC data, we counted 510 or 23
percent less than anticipated. My written testimony outlines
the process we undertook and includes graphics demonstrating
differences between FCC-provided data and what we discovered to
be true on the ground in our service area.
In addition, it is important to address concerns with the
FCC's Form 477. We believe the FCC's existing Form 477 data
overstates the availability of broadband, particularly in rural
America. The concept that a census block should be deemed
served in terms of fixed broadband service if one location in a
census block is served is just no longer viable.
Another frustrating aspect of the Form 477 data is the
reporting requirement allowing carriers to report advertised
maximum speeds in a census block even if they can only provide
that high speed to one customer.
While the devil is always in the details, there are steps
the FCC can take to vastly improve broadband data availability.
First, more granular data is needed to eliminate the false
positives in classifying census blocks as served or unserved.
Second, the FCC needs a system of checks and balances to help
ensure providers are reporting actual speeds that are reliably
available to consumers. Lastly, Federal agencies must undertake
increased data verification efforts, including the
implementation of a challenge process.
We appreciate members of Congress working to solve these
issues through legislation such as the Broadband Data
Improvement Act of 2019 by Representatives O'Halleran,
McMorris-Rodgers, Butterfield, Kuster, and McKinley.
Electric cooperatives know how challenging it is to build
infrastructure throughout rural America to provide a service
that is integral in the prosperity and future of our
communities. More accurate mapping showing broadband
availability are a key part of reaching all rural Americans
with high-speed broadband service. This will enable us to
clarify existing gaps and coverage, and harmonize the diverse
solutions that will be required to help rural Americans keep
pace with their urban counterparts. We look forward to a
continuing partnership with Congress to work toward that goal.
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify here today.
I am happy to answer any of your questions.
Chairman GOLDEN. Thank you, sir. We will now go back in
order and recognize Mr. Donovan for 5 minutes. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF TIM DONOVAN
Mr. DONOVAN. Chairman Golden, Ranking Member Stauber, and
members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to
testify about the need to produce more reliable coverage maps.
Mr. Chairman, you are correct when you recently noted that
this is a gravely important issue that creates barriers that
prevent rural small businesses from reaching their full
potential. These maps have been called many things. Useful is
not one of them. We must have reliable broadband coverage maps
to meet the challenge of closing the digital divide.
CCA is the Nation's leading association for competitive
wireless providers, representing nearly 100 carrier members as
well as vendor and suppliers. Through the recent FCC Mobility
Fund II challenge process, CCA members have firsthand
experience and motivation to fix the mapping process and
continue deploying mobile broadband services.
It is an exciting time in our industry as mobile
connections power new technologies and improve the quality of
life across the United States. 5G will supercharge these
services and enable new services, some not yet even imagined.
Current and future technologies depend on robust wireless
networks, and without the right policies, rural America will be
left behind.
Today's hearing is not only important, it is also timely.
Chairman Pai recently announced that this August the FCC will
vote on a report and order on updating broadband maps. I hope
today's hearing can help inform that process. We cannot close
the digital divide if we do not know the country's existing
coverage gaps.
I am pleased to join the Committee to continue the
discussion on how to produce reliable maps and to support the
policies small businesses rely on. You know that the
representation of coverage in the current maps in your
districts is overstated and, in some cases, substantially so.
The FCC and agencies across the government must work in
coordination with industry to produce the most reliable
coverage maps possible. The stakes are too high for anything
less than our best efforts.
I would like to take a minute to talk about how we got
here, as well as offer solutions for a path forward.
Historically, the FCC's Form 477 has served as its tool to
determine the availability of services and to guide
policymaking. However, current policies are not adequate to
allocate USF support. As recently as December, the FCC used
Form 477 data to report that ``approximately 100 percent of the
American population lives in geographical areas covered by
mobile LTE.'' This is wrong. If this were accurate, we would
not be having this hearing today.
Mobility Fund Phase II will provide $4.53 billion over the
next 10 years to preserve and expand 4G services. The FCC
decided to undertake a new, one-time data collection to
determine areas initially eligible for this support,
acknowledging that using the data to determine eligible areas
would prolong any challenge process.
To the FCC's credit, this data collection included specific
parameters. While taking steps to standardize the data should
be commended, we now know that the parameters selected did not
sufficiently improve the accuracy or credibility of the
resulting coverage maps, which continue to dramatically
overstate coverage, especially in rural areas. This is a
significant problem as the challenge process proved to be
overly burdensome, yet insufficient to correct flaws.
The problem is particularly acute for small entities that
must marshal resources or reassign staff to conduct challenges
rather than focus on deployment. The takeaways for this process
for challenges were twofold: one, the process was so
complicated and expensive that challengers large and small were
never able to challenge all the areas they wanted to; and two,
absent a successful challenge, too many unserved areas will
remain ineligible for support.
Mr. Chairman, in Maine specifically, one CCA member
collected millions of data points, but could not successfully
challenge 55 percent of the area they would have challenged
because of a lack of roads and resources. Your state was not
alone.
Despite these problems, entities last year provided the FCC
with over 20 million speed tests to challenge claimed coverage.
After a preliminary review, the FCC launched an investigation
into the data while suspending the next step of the challenge
process.
The investigation's findings can help improve future data
collections, but we already know that more robust
standardization is necessary. Any model will have shortcomings,
but to produce maps that are more reliable, the FCC must ask
carriers to provide a detailed Radio Frequency Link Budget
submission that includes the most relevant data, including
signal strength standardization, increased cell edge
probability, increased cell loading to more accurately reflect
how mobile networks are used in rural areas, and additional
clutter factors. Further standardizing these bottom line
factors will produce substantially more reliable maps and
reduce the need to expend additional resources to correct data
collection flaws.
In conclusion, connectivity for millions of Americans
living in rural areas and the small businesses that rely on
those connections depend on policy decisions that are based on
reliable, real-world data.
Thank you for your ongoing leadership on this critical
issue and for holding today's important hearing. I welcome any
questions you may have.
Chairman GOLDEN. Thank you, Mr. Donovan. Ms. Osler, it is
your turn for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF BETH OSLER
Ms. OSLER. Thank you, Chairman Golden, Ranking Member
Stauber, members of the Committee. My name is Beth Osler and I
work for UniTel, Incorporated, a very small telecommunications
company in Unity, Maine, somewhere between Freedom and Hope.
I am here today representing not only UniTel, but also
NTCA, the rural broadband alliance of which we are a member,
and they have over 850 members who are small companies
throughout the United States. So I am very proud to be able to
represent them today.
One of the good things we can say today is that there is no
argument about whether there is a problem or not. And we all
know that the problem exists, that it is particularly difficult
in rural areas, and even from other remarks this morning we all
know why it is happening. You cannot make a business case to
invest in an area where there aren't enough potential customers
for you ever to make a return on your investment. And so what
we do is we fall back on the ability, hopefully, of finding
private and public partnerships where we can all work together
to come up with a business case that actually works. And that
has happened several times in Maine and we want it to happen a
lot more.
Funds are limited, so you have potentially funds at the
local level, although I would say that is where they are most
limited; at the state level, and we have been working hard to
try to make those funds available through our agency Connect
Maine; and, as you know, at the Federal level. And we all know,
too, I believe, that even then, the amounts of money that could
be used for this purpose do not completely make up the need.
So what happens with maps? Everybody I think tries to do
their very best to provide accurate data, but because the data
is at such a high level at the census block level, the ability
to actually determine where there are unserved and underserved
areas is often impossible. And what we do is we end up with
false positives and false negatives where the FCC says there is
service and we know there isn't service; where the FCC says
there isn't service when we know there is service. And as you
can imagine, that makes the distribution of funds pretty
difficult.
So we need to make sure that these limited funds are used
in the most efficient and effective way. So we have kind of
three things we would like to share and I don't think they will
probably be much different from any of the other witnesses.
One, we definitely need more granularity at the map level.
We are perfectly interested and want to help to make that
possible from our perspective.
There have to be reporting standards. If people don't know
exactly how they are supposed to report or it is unclear and
they misunderstand what they are supposed to do, that is going
to add to your errors.
And obviously, there needs to be a challenge of validation
process, which is not working now. So, for example, we had six
census blocks where the FCC said there was broadband service.
We said, no, there is not. But we were ineligible for any
support because they claimed that they were and we couldn't
challenge that.
So those three areas of consideration about mapping are
probably where you will get the biggest bang for your buck, so
to speak. So we look forward to working with you and anyone
else that we can work with to make sure that happens. We want
our customers to have good service.
Thank you for letting me testify today.
Chairman GOLDEN. Of course, ma'am. Thank you so much. And
finally, Mr. Hendricks, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF JASON HENDRICKS
Mr. HENDRICKS. Good morning, Chairman Golden, Ranking
Member Stauber, and members of the Committee. My name is Jason
Hendricks. I am providing testimony today on behalf of the
Range Companies and WTA. It is a pleasure and an honor to
testify before you this morning.
The Range Companies are comprised of the parent company,
Range Telephone Cooperative, and its subsidiaries, RT
Communications, Dubois Telephone Exchange, and Advanced
Communications Technology. The four companies provide broadband
service in rural areas of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and South
Dakota. Our combined serving area is approximately 30,000
square miles with a customer density of .54 customers per
square mile.
Despite the low density and high cost challenges of our
serving areas, we provide very high-speed internet service,
including fiber-to-the-premise service, in many of our
communities. But like most rural providers we have some areas
that are cost-prohibitive to serve with speeds comparable to
those found in more densely populated areas. It is these areas
for which the accuracy of the broadband mapping is most
important and for which the current FCC mapping mechanism is
the least accurate. My testimony focuses on goals to improve
broadband mapping without being overly burdensome to small
providers with limited resources.
The current broadband map is derived from data reported by
broadband providers twice a year on Form 477. Problems with the
current broadband map include the use of advertised speeds
rather than actual speeds; lack of granularity through the
reliance on census block, which can be very large in rural
areas; overstatement of availability when entire census blocks
can be shown as served if only a subset of it is actually
served; understatement of availability due to a delay from when
information is provided to when it is shown on the map; the use
of inaccurate customer location data; and regulatory burdens
associated with data collection.
Between our four companies we are required to provide
broadband data on over 7,000 census blocks. Yet census blocks
can be upwards of hundreds of square miles in size and are
often ill-fitted to population clusters. For example, we are
required to provide data on a census block that is 366 square
miles with 19 locations.
I will provide you with an example of the problems that can
occur when census blocks are used to determine broadband
availability. RT Communications serves the town of Hulett,
Wyoming, which is near the Nation's first national monument,
Devils Tower. RT provides 100 megabit service in town, but
there are locations outside of town that we haven't been able
to serve with speeds of 25 megabits per second or more due to
the high construction costs. We have looked at pursuing grants
to defray some of the construction cost to serve those
locations. However, the large census block is considered served
because it includes a small portion of a well-served town. Were
a better mapping system used, the outlying locations could be
properly identified as unserved so that the funding could be
targeted to the locations in need. Similar examples can be
found throughout our serving areas.
The Range Companies are supportive of efforts to achieve
more granularity in broadband mapping to ensure that broadband
funding goes to areas most in need. We offer four goals for a
new broadband mapping system.
First, we request that the reporting requirements not be
overly burdensome for small providers. Second, we request that
the mapping methodology be used for all state and Federal
funding decisions so that providers are not subjected to
reporting requirements that differ across jurisdictions. Third,
the process used to verify the accuracy of the data should be
meaningful and minimally burdensome to small providers. Fourth,
a streamlined challenge process should be used to ensure
broadband availability is not overstated and that support goes
to areas of need.
Two mapping proposals that are gaining traction involve the
use of shapefiles and location fabrics. We believe these
proposals need not be mutually exclusive and both can be
adopted over time.
In the near term, we are supportive of the shapefile
proposal. It can be easily accommodated with our existing
mapping capabilities. It can also be more representative of
network architecture, community boundaries, and the locations
of outlying customers and rights-of-ways. And it can be
overlaid on multiple types of premise location platforms.
We are cautiously optimistic about the location fabric
proposal. We are fully aware of the errors contained in the
current location databases and we are hopeful that a more
accurate database can be developed.
We are looking forward to results of the pilot project on
the proposal. We do believe, however, that the shapefile
reporting process can be created and used prior to the
development of a customer location fabric.
With respect to the FCC's order that is due in August, I
will be working with WTA to provide comments to the FCC in
advance of the order's release to be consistent with the
positions I provided in my testimony today.
I thank you for the opportunity to speak with you.
Chairman GOLDEN. Thank you very much, Mr. Hendricks. Very
quickly, before we move to questions from members, I would like
to submit this letter from USTelecom, the broadband
association, for the record. Without objection, so ordered.
At this point we are going to go ahead and move to member
questions. And I am going to start by recognizing myself for 5
minutes.
Mr. Hendricks, I had some good follow-up for you, but I am
going to hold off and maybe we will come back to you later
because I know that we have got two members up here from
Minnesota who I am sure will want to have some back-and-forth,
including Mr. Stauber, who should be back very quickly.
First, Ms. Osler, I thought I would ask you it seems like
you have spent a lot of time working or trying to work at the
local, state, and Federal level and pulling different resources
together. And I have seen that repeatedly across the state. So
I wanted to ask you, you know that last year the FCC
decommissioned the National Broadband Map and came out with the
Fixed Broadband Deployment Map, which uses the FCC Form 477
submissions. It has been criticized as overstating coverage, as
you have heard and I think agreed yourself.
Earlier this year, NTIA announced a pilot program among
eight states to include Maine and Minnesota to collect
broadband to update the National Broadband Map. What role do
you think states can play in helping the Federal Government get
more accurate data working at the local level and state level?
And what kinds of barriers are there to doing it? Do you need
resources or help?
Ms. OSLER. Thank you, Mr. Golden. I think the closer to the
ground that you get, the more accurate your data will be. And
so I think it can only be better if the local/state folks do
their part to help make the Federal data accurate.
I think that it is likely that there will always be errors.
We are human and everyone is, I hope, so there are always going
to be errors. And that is why we should also have a consistent
way of letting people know when the data is inaccurate and a
way for it to be accepted and verified and made appropriate.
We all look forward in Maine to working with whoever can
help solve this problem because it is affecting us and will
continue to affect us more and more as we go forward.
Chairman GOLDEN. I appreciate that very much. I think it
strikes both the Ranking Member and I that there are a lot of
different programs that Congress has put forward, you know,
whether it be through USDA or other areas, things are rather
spread out. But you can create these great programs, but if you
are creating barriers to accessing them in terms of these
mapping requirements that hold people back, first you have got
limited access to those resources and, secondly, this issue of
being able to challenge that information with that local data
that you are collecting seems to be a real significant problem
and one that I hope we can work on.
It is upsetting to hear that there is not a robust back-
and-forth where you can go to the Federal Government to feed
the information that you are working hard to gather on behalf
of your people.
Ms. OSLER. Yes, and the more inaccurate the maps are, the
more frustrating it must have been for the FCC to try to come
up with a way to fix it. I think they got overwhelmed probably.
But there has got to be a better way to do it and I think that
part of it is getting down into the data further, so that those
kind of overriding errors don't--they spread essentially
because if you have one error that shows someone in a census
block when they are not there, then not only is that location
wrong, but everything in the whole census block is wrong.
Chairman GOLDEN. Thank you for that testimony. I appreciate
it.
Real quickly, I will throw this one over to you, Mr.
Donovan, and anyone can jump in. We only have a minute, though.
But this issue of advertisement speeds and just one person
being able to get a speed and all of a sudden you can
advertise. You know, you have got this wonderful coverage. It
reminds of truth in advertising type issues. Do you think there
is any work that needs to be done to try and make sure that
companies are advertising accurately what you can expect?
Mr. DONOVAN. Sure, I think it is both what you can expect
as well as where you can expect it, especially when you are
talking about mobile service. People expect your cellphone to
work for you. That is why you buy a mobile device. And so
getting into some of this fundamental data, as my colleagues on
the panel were talking about, as a starting point is necessary
before you can layer anything else on top of that.
Chairman GOLDEN. Thank you. I am just about out of time,
but I would say quickly we heard this in our field hearing in
Minnesota, and we are doing another one up in Maine in the
fall, but, I mean, a big manufacturing company talking about
how the speed advertised would be sufficient for his business
and perhaps the speeds are there when there is low usage late
at night, but when it is time to do business and people are at
work the speeds just aren't there as advertised so it is a
significant problem.
And I did want to point out before I cut myself off and
hand it over to the Ranking Member, for those of you that are
in the crowd, in the audience, or listening in back home, Ms.
Osler from Maine, if you are looking for a wonderful place, you
heard her talking about Waldo County, Maine, with such friendly
town names as places like Freedom, Hope, Unity, and Friendship.
It is actually Waldo and Knox County, but just an amazing,
wonderful part of the country and the names of the towns speak
to it.
So with that, I am out of time. Thank you, ma'am, for
joining us. And I will now recognize the Ranking Member.
Mr. STAUBER. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Waldo County sounds like
the entire state of Minnesota, thank you.
So, Chairman Golden, I want to just publicly thank you for
coming to our state, my state of Minnesota to have that
hearing. That generated a lot of interest. And as you know, one
of the questions I asked to the business owners is had he known
when he started the business would he locate in that same spot
with the lack of internet access? He said absolutely not, and
that is rural Minnesota.
And I think the four of you, I want to thank the four of
you here because you understand that rural America matters. And
that is a district that I am fortunate to represent and your
testimony is congruent to that thinking. And so the expansion
of broadband, the deployment in rural America, we bring our
businesses. And I feel it is a choice of quality of life and
just the opportunity to be able to have that small business
anywhere in this country you want is so important.
So my first question will be to Mr. Donovan. You know,
couldn't we get better maps by leveraging government to help
collect more and better data? For instance, there are Federal
employees that roam all over the country, probably all of whom
carry a mobile phone. Could an app or a program run an
automated coverage scan while carrying out their regular
duties? And would that help gather a deeper understanding of
what coverage looks like in rural America?
Mr. DONOVAN. Thank you for the question. So, yes, you know,
Federal employees could collect this data and that would be
particularly useful in verifying where coverage does and
doesn't exist.
To the question before on, you know, the speeds available,
too, that also speaks to one factor that is measured in this
called the loading factor, where if people are using the
network heavily, you are not going to get the same speeds. And
so, as we are building these maps it is important that the FCC
sets that right loading factor to actually reflect how people
are using these networks in rural areas.
While it is useful for verifying based on the employee's
usage, I still think we need to start with more granular data
coming in from the carriers. You can then push some of the
burden. You know, part of the problem in the challenge process
was the burden was all put on small entities, on state and
local governments. If you start with better data, you can
verify it through programs like what you discussed with Federal
employees and shift that burden away from state and local
government or private entities to prove the negative where they
know that there isn't service.
Mr. STAUBER. Thank you very much. Ms. Osler, our Committee
consistently hears from small entities that the Federal
Government should not adopt a ``one size fits all'' data
collection to mapping purposes. Can improving the broadband map
be done in such a way that the smaller telecommunications have
an easier time of it when compared to the larger ones?
Ms. OSLER. I think it is perfectly fine if there are
different ways of gathering the data. My company has 25
employees. We know where every single building is in our
property. We would love to just be able to tell people that and
I think a lot of small companies could do that, too.
The issue to me, though, is that over and over again when
there is an error, it would be so easy to fix. And so the
validation, the ability to challenge what seems like more of a
negative word, but the opportunity to work together to make
sure it is correct is----
Mr. STAUBER. And I like that word, ``the opportunity''----
Ms. OSLER. Right.
Mr. STAUBER.--to be able to, you know, fix or bring data
that challenges what you have been given or what you have shown
by the bigger telecommunications company.
So to the four witnesses, this is a map of Minnesota that
says that a great part of Minnesota is covered. This map to me
is not accurate. There are places that say it is covered, I
know, I have been there, it is not covered. And so I think the
accuracy is so important.
And that is why you bring from your business experience,
that rural mentality, you bring part of the equation and part
of the answer, and I think a big part of the answer. Because we
know that--I am not concerned so much in the metro or urban
areas in the big places of Minneapolis or St. Paul or Rochester
maybe or even in the center of Duluth, which is the biggest
city in District Eight of Minnesota. The concern is you have
the ability to help augment the map when it is wrong and bring
some solutions to us.
And before my time runs out, I just want to tell you how
much I appreciate you being here and that it matters. Your
experience, you have just as much knowledge and experience as
some of the bigger companies and we need that. And our goal is
to invite you into that process. As you said, Ms. Osler, the
accuracy matters.
And my time is running out. I have run over. Thank you, Mr.
Chair, and I yield back.
Chairman GOLDEN. The gentleman yields back. And we will now
recognize Representative Abby Finkenauer, the Chairwoman of the
Subcommittee on Rural Development, Agriculture, Trade, and
Entrepreneurship.
Ms. FINKENAUER. Well, hello there. Thank you again, Mr.
Chairman, for letting me to sit in on this Subcommittee today
and thanks again for everybody being here.
Mr. Stelpflug, thank you again for traveling all the way
from Iowa's First District. And, you know, I know in your
testimony you compare the digital divide to the struggle that
rural America faced nearly 80 years ago when the U.S. began
deploying electricity. As a person with many years of
experience in the electric industry, what were your experiences
in developing networks in remote areas? And what are some of
the lessons that we can learn from that process you want to
make sure we hear loud and clear?
Mr. STELPFLUG. Some of the areas, when we started building
our broadband network, you know, I am from an REC and we built
the electric network that covers 56 percent of the landmass of
the United States. We used a lot of community development folks
to help us out to get things started. We have groups of people
that come together that say if you can get broadband to our
area, we will serve you or we will provide the customers. So,
you know, they are giving us some solutions to some problems
when we question how many customers we can actually get.
So we are taking a similar approach to the way the
broadband is expanded out. And it is an expensive venture and
we have to do it in a prudent manner; sometimes we just can't
afford to do it. So we rely on a lot of these communities to
help us out with that kind of thing.
Ms. FINKENAUER. Yeah.
Mr. STELPFLUG. Everyone is kind of coming together as a
group to work toward a common goal.
We have a small town in Allamakee County that is a county
seat that doesn't have adequate service and, you know, it is a
town of 3,000 people. The city contacted us, their economic
development people, asking if we could expand service to their
area and they volunteered to send out surveys and that type of
thing to find out what coverage would be to see if it would be
a viable option for us. So that is kind of an example of the
way the communities are asking us to help them out.
Ms. FINKENAUER. Great.
Mr. STELPFLUG. We are taking that same approach as we did
with the electric alliance years ago.
Ms. FINKENAUER. Okay, thank you. And wondering, too, if you
could make sure, again, that Washington here has, you know, a
little bit different perspective. I always take every
opportunity I get to remind this Committee that our farmers are
also small businesses. And as much as, obviously, we need
broadband and rural broadband to attract small businesses to
our Main Streets in rural Iowa and rural areas across the
country, our farmers also rely on this because of PrecisionAg
and how technologies are changing.
So I am wondering if you would be able to touch on that,
too, given the rural nature of Allamakee and also Clayton
County and how important that might be.
Mr. STELPFLUG. Yes, it is very important to the
agricultural community. Everything from the dairy farmers to
the crop farmers that are looking at real-time markets and are
making plans as far as their budgets are concerned, and they
need to have good internet access to do it. We have a lot of
areas that it is just not available. They are in some pockets
that are really not very populated and it is hard to justify
extending to some of these areas. But these farmers are really
dependent on the internet and they are kind of falling behind
just because they don't have access to these markets.
We hear of people that go to local libraries to do work on
some of this stuff to figure out what they are going to to. You
know, they are in a tough spot and to stay competitive with
everyone else in the country they need access to broadband.
Ms. FINKENAUER. Absolutely. Thank you, Mr. Stelpflug.
And I have just a minute left here, so this is just to the
whole panel. Obviously, have increasingly seen how small firms
benefit from broadband access. And it is actually hard to
imagine how any small business would survive without the
internet, including our farmers.
To the panel, you know, how can we encourage more
businesses to adopt the technology and take advantage of the
innovations brought by faster broadband? If anybody want to
touch on that. Ms. Osler?
Ms. OSLER. Yes, thank you.
Ms. FINKENAUER. Yeah.
Ms. OSLER. I think one of the things people don't talk bout
a lot, and I know we are talking about mapping right now, but
is that there are a great many small businesses who don't
understand what the use of the internet could do for them. We
did a survey a few years ago in our territory and 40 percent of
the small businesses, a lot of them at-home businesses, did not
even have a website.
Ms. FINKENAUER. Oh, my goodness. Wow.
Ms. OSLER. So I think there is a wonderful opportunity and
we at UniTel have actually been doing this of providing digital
literacy training, not only what you want for service, but how
to use it. I mean, we had people in those classes that we had
to teach how to turn on the computer and then we had other
people who wanted to learn how to use QuickBooks so that they
could run their business from home. This is a wonderful
opportunity that we are looking forward to taking advantage of.
Ms. FINKENAUER. Well, thank you so much, Ms. Osler. And I
know my time is about to expire, so I just want to say thank
you again to all the folks here.
And thank you, Mr. Chair, again for letting me sit in on
this meeting.
Chairman GOLDEN. Happy to have you join. Thanks for coming.
We now recognize Representative Jim Hagedorn from Minnesota
One.
Mr. HAGEDORN. Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this
hearing. I appreciate that you and Ranking Republican Stauber
made it up to Minnesota. That was a good hearing. And I think
these continued hearings on the subject can be very important
and I pledge my support to all of you.
I think everybody in the room is on the same team. We want
this to work. We want to help out the folks in rural America
and make sure that the people that happen to live outside of
big cities have the same opportunities, as Congressman Stauber
said, as the folks in the big cities. And it is a basic
infrastructure issue.
I mean, let us face it, I agree with my colleague from
Iowa, this is a lot like the REAs and delivering that last mile
or two of electricity to the farms out there to make sure
everybody was up to speed on that, roads and bridges, sewers,
water, whatever it is. And now it is broadband and this is just
a quality of life issue and it is something that we have to
keep pushing and make sure it gets done as it is very
critically important for our folks out there in our counties.
So, you know, when we were at that hearing up in Minnesota,
Congressman Stauber's constituent, a small business guy, and he
is talking about he is right, you know, if you had to look back
and do it all over again, he would probably wouldn't have even
tried. And there is a lot of opportunity costs out there that
we are missing. But there are businesses in rural communities
right now that would like to expand and they are like, eh, you
know, what is the cost of labor? What is the cost of this? Do I
even have broadband service to the point where I could expand
my operations?
There are probably bigger sized businesses that would like
to move into parts of Southern Minnesota and they are like, you
know, not going to fiddle with it. We are just going to go
where it is taken care of. So whatever we can do to move this
along, like I said, you have my support.
I agree with Pete, looking at this map of the First
District of Minnesota, and it says here 98 percent is covered.
But then you look at what real speeds are, maybe only a third,
and you can't do business that way.
And then when you get down and you are looking in the
future and you have a lot of folks in rural areas, veterans,
others, elderly people, and they want to do telemedicine, so
maybe they don't have to travel 50 or 100 miles or they can get
care right away. It could be also people with mental health
care and things of that nature. Doctors need to be able to see
the charts, you need to be passing things back and forth, you
need to make sure that it all makes sense.
And for our farmers, you know, a lot of livestock out there
fed every day with mechanizations all run by the internet. That
goes haywire, it doesn't work, that is rough on the animals,
rough on the operations. And so we got to get it right.
Mr. Hendricks, I liked what you said about making sure that
whatever they do in the future that we don't have onerous
regulations and things that the burden would be borne too much
by small business, by the smaller telecommunications companies,
and others that are delivering this. Do you think it is pretty
important that when we have businesses in these areas that they
are the ones that can do the service, that they are the ones
that are going to be in those communities long term? Or what
are your thoughts in general on making sure that we protect the
small businesses that are doing this work?
Mr. HENDRICKS. Thank you for the question, Congressman. And
just a clarification that your question on small businesses is
the small providers that are doing the work in the areas? Is
that correct?
Mr. HAGEDORN. Yeah.
Mr. HENDRICKS. Yes, I think that is very important. I mean,
we care about the communities we serve. We live in the
communities. You know, it is not just a profit maximization
thing. It is a serving the community thing.
And for us, if we can have a methodology to provide
broadband mapping that fits in with our current systems, which
I think the shapefile proposal does, I think that that makes
sense. I think that you will end up solving a lot of the issues
that you guys have been talking about as far as knowing
individual areas.
You will be able to put a shapefile, for example, around a
town, that area is well served. Maybe a community outside of
town you put a shapefile over that, or a polygon I should say,
and maybe that is at a lower speed. And then the more remote
areas, they can be signified with lines and dots. And I think
that fits in well with capabilities that we have for a small
business.
Mr. HAGEDORN. Might know the area and customers better.
Might have more of an interest in making sure that it gets done
right and that the people are serviced long into the future
because they are probably going to be doing business there for
a long time.
Mr. Donovan, real quick, when they figure out these speeds
and they say potentially 25, 3, whatever, is that just per
person or is that per every 100 users or how do they do it?
Mr. DONOVAN. So for wireless service it is based on a
model. You put in these different factors and then this is the
minimum speeds you get. And the factors that you use make a
real-world difference.
So as a quick data point on that, if you will allow me a
few more moments, in the Mobility Fund data collection they
required wireless carriers to report where 80 percent of the
cell edge. So where the distance is where you have an 80
percent likelihood of getting the speeds. We now know that that
is too low. So carriers build to at least 90 percent cell edge,
public safety is 95 percent. That 10 percent difference turns
out into a 27 percent difference in the circumference of the
cell service and a 60 percent difference of the area covered.
So that 10 percent ends up being a huge area that claims that
there is service where it actually is not up to those minimum
speeds.
Mr. HAGEDORN. So they should upgrade some of those
standards?
Mr. DONOVAN. Yes, sir.
Mr. HAGEDORN. Thank you.
Chairman GOLDEN. Thank you very much. We now recognize
Representative Marc Veasey from Texas.
Mr. VEASEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Good
morning. I would like to thank the witnesses for being here
today to discuss the need for better and more comprehensive
mapping of the current availability of broadband across the
USA. And as someone that has heard a lot about this issue, and,
as a matter of fact, I signed onto a letter led by my
colleagues on another Committee that I serve on that question
the data relied upon by the FCC to determine where and how
extensive broadband deployment is across the U.S.
Coming from the state of Texas, where there is more rural
area than urban area, it is important to ensure that rural
residents are able to participate in and benefit from our
increasingly technology-reliant society. And I represent all
urban Texas, but, again, in order for our state to continue to
grow and prosper this is a hugely important issue.
I am old enough to remember going to my cousin's
grandparents' house, out in what we call the country, out in
Palestine, Texas, and where they still didn't even have indoor
plumbing back in the late 1970s and 1980s. And people don't
realize how long it takes for rural America to oftentimes get
connected to the rest of what is going on in the world and this
is very important.
Mr. Donovan, in your testimony you spoke about the FCC
allowing a load factor of 30 percent, which failed to
accurately reflect mobile broadband in rural areas. Given the
increased reliance on mobile devices in many rural communities
do you believe that tightening the FCC's parameters as
mentioned in your testimony will have the effect of helping
close the digital divide between rural and urban areas?
Mr. DONOVAN. Yes, sir, and thank you for the question. So
if you have that load factor set too low, at 30 percent, then
people aren't actually going to be getting the speeds when the
network is actually in use. And this isn't only a small carrier
issue. Even Verizon in the record noted how nearby to your
state in the panhandle of Oklahoma that load is consistently
above the 30 percent; it is only there about a third of the
time. And that is because people are reliant on their mobile
devices to connect to the internet as well as the fact that
rural sites are more likely to be served using low band
spectrum.
Low band spectrum is great because it travels long
distances. You need fewer towers to build out and so in areas
with low population density it is what you want to use. The
tradeoff of that is lower capacity. So to make up for the way
that those sites are engineered, you need to have a loading
factor that is at least 50 percent, if not higher.
Mr. VEASEY. Would these tightened parameters create an
incentive for more funding to be invested to increase mobile
broadband development in rural areas?
Mr. DONOVAN. Yes, so they would help make the correct areas
eligible for support as well as help give you a more reliable
picture of what the need is. Until we have a reliable map, you
know, we support all the discussions of making additional
funding available for building out broadband and mobile
services in rural areas. But until you know the size of those
coverage gaps, it is really hard to determine what amount of
support is necessary to close that.
Mr. VEASEY. We know that reliable broadband allows for
friends, families, and businesses to stay connected, as has
been articulated here today. Can you talk a little about how
affordable high-speed internet improves the lives of people
living in rural America and making these towns a more
attractive place to live, work, and raise a family?
As you know, one of the things that you hear about rural
America, at least all around Texas and I am sure around the
country, is that they actually have a hard time keeping a lot
of their talent there. Kids go off to college, get educated,
and then they don't want to come back to these towns because
there is not a lot of opportunity. Can you talk a little bit
about how bringing broadband out to rural areas may sort of
help them economically and then even be able to retain some of
their local talent?
Mr. DONOVAN. Sure. So, you know, at one of our recent trade
show conferences. the CTO from one of our rural providers was
asked the question what do rural Americans want out of 5G? And
the answer is simple: It is the same thing as everyone else.
We have heard talk today about telemedicine and, you know,
a fifth of the population lives in rural areas, but with only
about 10 percent of the physicians. If you want to get them the
care they need, you need to make sure that you have broadband
access.
Ranking Member Stauber mentioned payments. Just last
weekend I was in Western Maryland, an area that looks like it
is served on the map, turns out it is not. I am standing at a
table for a local foundation and the gentleman in front of me
in line said do you accept cash or credit? And they said
``accept credit if it is going to work.'' You know, that is not
reliable enough for somebody to conduct a business. And for
somebody who is used to having connectivity, it is not a viable
place for them to go and then to locate and try and, you know,
start a business or raise a family.
Mr. VEASEY. Well, thank you. Yeah, that is fascinating.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Chairman GOLDEN. Thank you, sir. And we will now go ahead
and recognize Congressman Troy Balderson. He is the Ranking
Member of the Subcommittee on Innovation and Workforce
Development.
Mr. BALDERSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning,
everyone, and thank you for being here this morning.
My first question is for Ms. Osler. In your testimony you
mentioned how the rural nature of service territories can cause
unique difficulties in providing service. During my time in the
Ohio State Legislature, I would hear how something as simple as
a ravine or a forest line could prevent accurate maps from
being constructed, greatly reducing broadband service
capabilities.
How can government work better with the private sector to
ensure the most accurate map is created? That is the first
question. A follow-up to that would be and what can the FCC do
to engineer the most granular maps?
Ms. OSLER. Thank you very much, sir. I think we have kind
of touched on that and that is that we have to use a deeper
level of data. And I think, for example, shapefiles might be
one of the ways to do that. I know we already use shapefiles to
get data to the state as to where we provide service.
Just a quick story. One of the state senators in Maine
called us and said I have a business that wants to locate here,
but they said they can't because there is no internet service
where they are. There was fiber running right in front of the
building.
So there are all kinds of problems with not having accurate
mapping. She was able to explain to him that he could get
whatever he wanted.
In my community, we have fiber to the home. How did we do
that? We got help from the state to leverage the investment, so
they gave us several hundred thousand dollars and we invested
1.2 million more, and we were able to run over 200 miles of
fiber. These are the kind of things that after you do that, as
a businessperson, if it doesn't show up on the map, it is kind
of annoying and it is very frustrating for customers.
So the map--everything comes back initially to the maps.
From there, if you have accurate maps, from there you can do
all kinds of things. Without that accuracy, you get people off
on tangents and making decisions based on inadequate or
erroneous information.
Mr. BALDERSON. I promise I won't have a tangent, but the
Ranking Member also showed and Representative Hagedorn, I mean,
these are very, very misleading and very, very inaccurate, so,
hopefully, we can address that issue. Thank you very much for
your answer, though.
My next question is for Mr. Hendricks. In your testimony
you talk about the inability for Americans to challenge the
speed being advertised to them and the speed that is being
delivered. How can we enable Americans to voice their concerns
without creating additional burdens for smaller telecom
providers?
Mr. HENDRICKS. Thank you for the question. With respect to
being able to look at it, I think there are two parts. There is
a proposal called crowdsourcing, which would allow people to do
speed tests and then report it as their own verification. And I
think that is an important thing to allow and to consider.
I did caution in my written statement about overreliance on
that because there can be some inaccuracies whenever you are
talking about customer devices within a home on networks that
we don't control. It can result in an understatement of what
the speed availability is. But if there are a bunch of data
points showing consistent things, then, yeah, I think that
should be considered.
As far as the second part, which would be a challenge
process, we are fully in support of a challenge process to
allow any entity to challenge that broadband is available in a
certain area or not available. So, before any funding decisions
are made, there should be an opportunity to allow people to
challenge the accuracy of the map, particularly providers who
may be impacted by the funding decisions.
Mr. BALDERSON. Okay, thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, I
apologize, I yield back my remaining time.
Chairman GOLDEN. Thank you very much for that. Do you have
any interest in asking any more questions?
All right. You all set?
All right, I am going to go ahead and go into additional
round and we will let Mr. Stauber start.
Mr. STAUBER. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to reiterate
what I said. You know, one of the statements here is, ``This
new map will be borne out of the collective efforts of small
telecos, large telecos, and the FCC.'' You folks matter. You
need to be at the table and I want to assure you that the
Chairman and I will make sure you are at the table to represent
rural America. You have experience. You understand, as Ms.
Osler said, you know where it is at and where it is not at from
being in the community.
And I just can't reiterate enough to you, please work with
us, give us your suggestions, because the Chairman and I want
to make sure that your rural experience is brought into this
mapping process to make it better.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chairman GOLDEN. Well, with that, I think we have covered
pretty much all of it, looking through your testimony and the
back-and-forth of the questions. And we could keep going, but,
as Ms. Osler just indicated, you know, I think often we end up
coming back to the same responses here and there is good reason
for that, because your testimony has been excellent and we
appreciate it very much.
Jeez, I can't help but, you know, say that just last week I
was having a bit of an issue with government and talking about
how important accurate information is. In this case it was back
home in Maine having to do with lobstermen. It is no different
here with the FCC. We need to expect that the government is
going to have the most accurate data and information available
in order to make decisions. We owe that to the people of the
country.
It is maybe perhaps out of fashion to legislate in great
detail, but then when we hand things off to Federal agencies to
implement the intent and will of Congress it requires a lot of
oversight. That is what we are doing here.
We appreciate you coming in and we will continue to push to
try and get the FCC to work more closely with you because you
are like boots on the ground, the little force multipliers that
they should be working with to get more accurate information
and data rather than kind of butting heads with, so to speak.
We could go on and on and on, everyone up here and all of
you and probably a lot of other people, about all the stories
about how broadband access just isn't cutting it in rural
America, so I am not going to go off on a tangent. I would love
to, but probably could pull 10 stories out of my pocket right
now, but this is an important issue. I want to thank everyone
for working together on it building up to this hearing, but
also going forward because there is a lot of work to be done,
and we look forward to working with all of you.
I want to thank the Committee staff, as well, for all the
work that is going into this. And it is not just the work that
went into the Committee, but following this issue closely and
helping make sure that we are in a good place to make some real
progress. Not enough to pass a new grant program. We got to
make sure that it is effective and implemented in an effective
way, so that it is actually benefiting our small businesses,
our families, and communities back home.
We know how important this is. It is a major issue to
unlocking opportunity in rural areas in the remainder of this
century and going into the future. Accurate maps, we can't
spend money on investing in infrastructure if we don't have
accurate data. Like you said, Ms. Osler, the limited resources
require that we spend it most wisely.
So thank you all very much for being a part of this. I
would ask that we have unanimous consent that members have 5
legislative days to submit statements and supporting materials
for the record. Without objection, so ordered.
And if there is no further business to come before the
committee, we are adjourned. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 11:14 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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