They want census blocks where you have service deployed, and then census
tracts where actual subscribers are. The latter can still come out of
your billing system.
I'm sure how 2-year old friendly you can get.
I downloaded census block shape files (.shp) from the census web site.
Imported those into Manifold GIS.
I generated coverage maps in Radiomobile. Imported the images into
Manifold GIS. Then altered the projection so the image would match
actual geography (you basically take some numbers from the KML file and
do a little non-difficult math).
Then I used the auto tracing tool in Manifold to create polygons that
cover the image generated by radio mobile...you have to use a solid
color overlay in Radiomobile for this, not a heatmap.
Then I did a transform to create a new drawing showing the census blocks
that intersect the radio coverage polygons. Lather, rinse, and repeat
for each type of coverage that might matter.
At this point I've got tables of census blocks for each type of radio
coverage. I'm only supposed to report each block once (unless it's
served under a different company name, or with a different technology,
since these are all fixed wireless I only report them once). To get one
table where only the highest available speed is reported, I imported the
various tables into MySQL using the census block as the primary key and
imported them in order of speed from lowest to highest.
Then I exported the resulting table into a csv that I can upload to the FCC.
It takes longer to learn all these steps than it took me to explain it.
It's also pretty time consuming and tedious. It's totally do-able if
you have a few hundred bucks to spend on software and a number of days
to spend on figuring it all out. Now that's all figured out, I could
repeat the process with your coverage overlays for a nominal fee :)
The previous 477 filing was confusing enough to me. I submittted data that
was generated for me from our billing system without actually knowing what
exactly it was or how to verify it was accurate.
Now with the new system, Im completely lost. Im afraid of the feds and
their black helicopters that will sweep in and take my children to gitmo
(not all that concerned about the old lady, I can find somebody else to run
the vaccum)
Can somebody please explain to me like im a two year old what all the steps
are and the details of what the information is they want. And maybe even a
simpletons description of how to obtain it accurately?
As I understand it the gist is to provide the FCC with subscribership
information so they can value the census blocks regarding current
penetration and subscribership. I assume the compare the combined
subscriber-ship with census data to calculate what percentage of citizens
are being served in each block? But as I understand it, if no voice service
is offered, or subscribed to, the block is considered unserved?
If we dont have our filing in by the Oct 1 deadline, they will firebomb a
village in africa?
