Drew,
That statement was meant to state that many states (non
connected nation contracts mostly) have the bulk of their experience with
GIS and data companies, not people who have worked in the broadband
industry. When it comes to reviewing data and information collected by some
GIS companies, they typically do not have a good understanding of the value
of various data when looking at the broadband picture in a state. This is
not to say that they lack the skills to map what they have been given and
compile it in to the necessary formats for the NTIA, but what they do lack
is the ability to think outside the box, to work with carriers in a way to
minimize the carriers level of work they need to do to supply good data to
the mapping effort. I have seen many contractors that just can't deal with
anything outside their form and checkbox system (again, this are not
connected nation contracted states).
If Connected Nation takes my comments personally please let me state that
this is not an attack on any of their work. These are my observations of
working with other states in conjunction with WISP's outside the states that
have a contract with Connected Nation. My statement was based on direct
interaction with the state contracts and the WISP's. In one case it took a
direct intervention from the NTIA to get it worked out with said state.
Thank You,
Brian Webster
214 Eggleston Hill Rd.
Cooperstown, NY 13326
(607) 643-4055 Office
(607) 435-3988 Mobile
(208) 692-1898 Fax
Skype: Radiowebst
<http://www.wirelessmapping.com> www.wirelessmapping.com
www.Broadband-Mapping.com
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf Of Drew Lentz
Sent: Thursday, August 04, 2011 1:06 PM
To: WISPA General List
Subject: Re: [WISPA] Providing data to NTIA for Broadband mapping?
I disagree with this:
Most of these mapping contractors are people who do not have any broadband
experience.
Depending on the group that gets assigned the funding for the mapping
projects (and that is done per state), some of these guys are highly
proficient in doing the data collection. They have decades of experience and
most definitely know what they are doing.
The only reason I mention this is because part of their toolset does include
pretty sophisticated software, that does in fact have a higher price tag
than RM. I love RM, always have, and have used it for years. But crunching
together WiMax, LTE, Wi-Fi, etc into it simultaneously can be kind of a
hassle; and exporting it and combining it with data from thousands of
locations, just as difficult.
One process that I am familiar with when it comes to this (at least here in
TX and what one of the WISPs I built went through) went like this:
1. Contacted by the mapping agency
2. The mapping agency asked for coverage maps, if they were available.
3. Info on tx and rx gear was obtained for signal modeling.
4. test points were assigned.
5. Test points were used to gather real-world signal levels.
6. Maps were created based on tx and rx gear and real-world signal levels.
7. each one of those newly found maps were sent upstream to state HQ where
they were combined with all the other state maps to create a pretty thorough
database / map
-d
On Aug 4, 2011, at 9:19 AM, Brian Webster wrote:
Most of these mapping contractors are people who do not have any broadband
experience.
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