A preview of the broadband fabric: Opportunities and issues for researchers and policymakers

Abstract

The Broadband Deployment Accuracy and Technological Availability (DATA) Act signed into law in March 2020 requires the development of a national “broadband serviceable location fabric (BSLF)” containing georeferenced information on all locations where fixed broadband could be installed. This represents a significant shift from prior datasets, where broadband availability was gauged from the estimated number of people/households in each Census Block (i.e., without geolocations). The inclusion of agricultural structures is particularly important, since broadband investment in agricultural zones has been limited to date. We use an early version of the BSLF for the state of Oklahoma, produced by CostQuest Associates, to demonstrate the opportunities and issues that may arise for broadband researchers and policymakers as the DATA Act becomes reality. We highlight four main takeaways: (1) consideration of non-residential units greatly impacts overall availability estimates; (2) data quality (and quantity) varies greatly across counties; (3) BSLF residential unit counts differ from FCC or Census estimates; and (4) practitioners will still need service-area shapefiles/addresses from providers to use the fabric most effectively.