On July 8, 2010, the New America Foundation's Open Technology Initiative and Columbia Telecommunications Corporation jointly submitted comments in response to the Federal Communication Commission's Public Notice seeking comment on the measurement of mobile broadband network performance. Beginning with appreciation towards the Commission's commitment to promote greater transparency in all broadband services, the comments provide an overview of several open and transparent approaches to measuring mobile broadband including a systematic engineering approach and end-user 'crowdsourcing' measurement tools.
"Mobile broadband is playing an increasing role in how we access the Internet. And yet we know very little about the actual performance capabilities of mobile broadband and where and at what speeds it is available. A systematic approach to measuring mobile broadband can provide much needed data to help fill that information void," said Benjamin Lennett, Policy Analyst for the Open Technology Initiative.
The comments cover all important aspects of mobile broadband measurement extensively, including measurement metrics, parts of the network, tools and methods for measuring performance and service coverage, benefits and costs of measurement, and what little consumer information is available on mobile broadband performance. They further suggest that an open and transparent measurement process that ensures access to the underlying methodology of measurement tools and the resulting raw data by the public, researchers, and policymakers is essential to the success of this measurement effort and to promoting its extensibility for the future. The Benton Foundation, Consumers Union and Native Public Media also signed on to the comments.
"With an extensible and open measurement platform, the FCC has the opportunity to create an intervention where providers, researchers, and broadband consumers sit equally informed with the most up-to-date broadband data. This data represents the beginning of the end for the nebulous snake oil that is currently available to the public for mobile broadband research," said Dan Meredith, Staff Technologist for the Open Technology Initiative.
"For far too long, legislators and regulators have operated under a veil of ignorance about the true state of mobile communications," stated Sascha Meinrath, Director of the New America Foundation's Open Technology Initiative. "Instead of making decisions in the dark, it is imperative that key decision makers support a thorough and transparent mobile broadband data collection process so that they can make empirically-based national broadband policy."
Comments are available here.
About the Open Technology Initiative:
New America Foundation's Open Technology Initiative formulates policy and regulatory reforms to support open architectures and open source innovations and facilitates the development and implementation of open technologies and communications networks.
For more information, visit: http://oti.newamerica.net.
Please contact Kate Brown with media inquiries at 202-596-3365 or brown@newamerica.net.
