I will agree that it is not a good thing that we are not reporting our data.
However.... I did not submit my Form477 data until September, simply because I had no way to give them accurate data! Generating the data by zip codes was easy, as all we had to do was take the zip codes from our billing or service location information, spit out a report and be on our way. Generating the codes by census tract was a nightmare, and I told the people at the FCC that I would not be submitting the data until I could get it as I did not have any way to provide it! I don't think that I would be going out on a limb to say that I run a professional WISP operation, with good documentation, accurate billing and a high degree of technical expertise. Until the definition of the Form477 form came out last year requiring census tract information, there was no requirement for maintaining census tract information. There is also no accurate way to geocode census tract information from address information, as we found out when we ran our customer addresses through a geolocation database and ended up with an approximate 50% accuracy rate. So here is the result - I operate a professionally run, well documented WISP operation and I was unable to comply with the requirements of the report. I did send multiple messages to the people at the FCC in charge of the 477 and let them know why I had not completed the report, and we finally ended up submitting the information on the second report of the year with a note on the application that indicated we felt the data submitted was partially inaccurate due to geocoding database errors and we would work on cleaning up our own data going forward. I can only imagine what the burden of trying to get this information is for the WISP operators who don't have the kind of resources I have to work with. Start to finish, the census tract requirement was a damn mess. Going forward, we are developing a 477 report program that will get our information out of Freeside and generate the appropriate 477 required data. Right now, I have GPS coordinates for about 20% of my customers, and we have a page where employees can login and get a real-time list of all the customers that don't have GPS coordinates. We are using a combination of geocode database lookups using their service address to determine the unknown GPS coordinates, and if that data is obviously incorrect, we use the driving directions combined with Google Earth to determine the correct location. Each of my employees are taking some time to work on this and we anticipate having all of our legacy data updated by June 1. It is a giant pain in the ass, but is somewhat mitigated by being able to take a few months and a little bit of time everyday to get it updated. That is the only way that I am going to be able to deliver accurate data. If the FCC went back to just asking for zip codes, the WISP subscriber number would probably be over 1 million. Matt Larsen vistabeam.com Brian Webster wrote: > The latest FCC report on form 477 broadband data is out > (http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-296239A1.pdf). While > I don't see a whole lot of useful data in it, I do see where WISP's are > killing themselves and the industry, why? > > a.. In the periods prior to the December 2008 report, fixed wireless has > shown a steady increase in subscribers. The last reporting period the number > of subscribers dropped from 808,000 to 488,000!!! That's a 39.6% drop in the > actual data that had been previously reported. Know I know that most of the > problem is the fact they now require census tract reporting rather than zip > codes, but dropping like this does not help the industry as a whole. > b.. Because of the low number of reported subscribers, the reporting by > technology portions of the report does not even earn fixed wireless a spot > on the charts in it's own category. It's lumped in with the 1.4% total of > all other technologies compared to the rest of the broadband industry. Hell > Satellite has their own category with .9%. > c.. The total number of fixed wireless providers reporting is 617. That > means there are a huge number of WISP's not filing form 477 and those that > didn't report must have a large number of subscribers. The previous period > where fixed wireless had 808,000 subscribers had only 505 WISP's report! > Matt Larsen and the WISP directory have around 1,800 WISP's registered. I've > heard other estimates between 2,000 and over 4,000. Only 617 fixed wireless > operators reporting is not helping the cause at all. > d.. The National broadband plan is being formulated as we speak, looking > at those statistics it appears the WISP industry is in a serious decline and > that as a total percentage of broadband provided to consumers nationally, > they make no significant difference. > If you were a government policy maker, would you even pay attention to > WISP's. I certainly would not. They have to make decisions based on data and > that benefit the majority of the country. WISP's have thumbed their noses at > providing this data for years. I think it is really going to bite them in > the butt now. Fiber to the home is coming liking it or not. USF reform is > coming like it or not. USF reform is going to subsidize broadband to the > very markets wireless serves more economically today. Removing that > advantage is going to put the WISP industry in serious trouble. > > The manufacturers are killing themselves as well. In their quest to just > sell radios, they have missed the importance of keeping the industry > healthy. If the WISP's cannot compete and/or show that they are a > significant option to the overall broadband infrastructure in the US, how > will they continue to sell product. If anyone knows the true number of > WISP's out there it is the manufacturers. They should be leading the charge > with groups like WISPA to make sure ALL WISP's stand up and get counted. How > hard would it be to stuff each shipment with educational material on the > importance of filing form 477? > > The current FCC is very open minded but the results of this type of report > force them to make decisions that benefit the most people. 488,000 is a very > small portion of over 129 million homes. > > All I can say is ouch........ > > > Thank You, > Brian Webster > > > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > WISPA Wants You! 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