John Brodkin at Ars Technica is reporting on the shady practices of ISPs.
Ryan Grewell, who runs a small wireless Internet service provider in Ohio, last month received an email that confirmed some of his worst suspicions about cable companies.
Grewell, founder and general manager of Smart Way Communications, had heard from some of his customers that the Federal Communications Commission's new broadband map falsely claimed fiber Internet service was available at their homes from another company called Jefferson County Cable. Those customer reports spurred Grewell to submit a number of challenges to the FCC in an attempt to correct errors in Smart Way's service area.
One of Grewell's challenges elicited a response from Jefferson County Cable executive Bob Loveridge, who apparently thought Grewell was a resident at the challenged address rather than a competitor.
"You challenged that we do not have service at your residence and indeed we don't today," Loveridge wrote in a January 9 email that Grewell shared with Ars. "With our huge investment in upgrading our service to provide xgpon we reported to the BDC [Broadband Data Collection] that we have service at your residence so that they would not allocate addition [sic] broadband expansion money over [the] top of our private investment in our plant."
[...]
Speaking to Ars in a phone interview, Grewell said, "This cable company happened to just say the quiet part out loud." He called it "a blatant attempt at blocking anyone else from getting funding in an area they intend to serve."
It's not clear when Jefferson County Cable plans to serve the area. Program rules do not allow ISPs to claim future coverage in their map submissions.
Jefferson County Cable ultimately admitted to the FCC that it filed incorrect data and was required to submit a correction. The challenge that the ISP conceded was for an address on State Route 43 in Bergholz, Ohio. The town is not one of the coverage areas listed on Jefferson County Cable's website.
While checking the FCC broadband map today, we confirmed that the address is no longer listed as having Jefferson County Cable service. But that one fix alone wouldn't prevent the company's grant-blocking strategy from working, because the FCC map still lists the company as serving the address right next door and others on the same road. [emphasis added]
The article includes several other instances of ISPs lying about their coverage areas in an attempt to keep competitors from securing funding to actually cover those areas.
Even worse, the "challenge" process only allows for claims at a specific address, rather than a census block or neighborhood. Even though a successful challenge clearly shows a lack of infrastructure to support surrounding addresses -- those remain listed as in the ISPs coverage area when they clearly aren't.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by dwilson98052 on Monday February 06, @12:49AM (3 children)
Spot verify reports from ISPs, especially in under served areas then audit all service addresses of ISPs found to be misreporting... at the ISPs expense.
And finally.... fine ISPs $50,000 for every address they say they service but actually don't.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by krishnoid on Monday February 06, @02:02AM (1 child)
And make that fine punitive -- as in, the
snitchreporter gets the money. That'll get the maps connected *really* quickly.(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday February 06, @03:29AM
Correct connected to corrected :-|
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday February 06, @08:50AM
Also, if it costs a competitor incentive money, the offender pays them double that amount in addition to the fine.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Fluffeh on Monday February 06, @02:35AM
I guess it's no huge surprise that if there's no accountability for the top end of elected officials, there is likely to be nothing for when companies lie to curb competition, or fraudulently claim money from the government. That statement also works in reverse. If there's no punishment for the lies told by companies, why should there be any more accountability in elected office.
Either have consequences, or stop pretending that there are any at all. Can't have it both ways.