VP of Government Affairs talks Broadband Mapping at Eastern Regional Conference

Bowling Green, KY. (May 2, 2019) – Saturday April 27^th, 2019 our Vice President of Government Affairs, Brent Legg gave a presentation on the fundamentals of creating accurate broadband maps at the Council of State Governments Eastern Regional Conference in Wilmington, DE.

During this meeting the CSG ERC’s Agriculture & Rural Development committee discussed all things rural broadband. Legg contributed some new and innovated ideas about mapping.

Why Map Broadband?

If you can't measure, it you can't improve it." - Peter Drucker

1. To improve better decision-making on where public resources should be invested to support broadband build out.


2. To avoid potential overbuild situations where service may already be available at a comparable speed and cost.


3. To ensure accountability for the ratepayer and taxpayer dollars once public investment have been made.

7 Key Components of Effective State Mapping

1. Provider reported data, but validated by a team of engineers – i.e., "trust but verify".


2. Street or road-level granularity for wireless services; propagation models for wireless services – all derived from service capabilities of actual infrastructure.


3. Data submission assistance is offered free of charge to small service providers without internal GIS capabilities.


4. Public feedback process – widely publicized and promoted by state leaders.


5. Feedback mechanism is integrated into an interactive broadband map to capture screenshots of disputed areas.


6. Crowd-sourced intelligence guides in-field validation.


7. Process repeats every 6 months.

Some of the other speakers included Congresswoman Blunt Rochester of DE and DE’s CIO James Collins. Connected Nation applauds all of the hard work!

Congresswoman Blunt Rochester of DE and DE’s CIO James Collins