Today's Regulatory Mix: FCC Welcomes Efforts on Wireless Emergency Alert Geo-Targeting, FCC Releases Paper on Positive Impact of Rural Broadband
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai issued a statement praising the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS), a standards organization, for its efforts to improve the geographic accuracy of Wireless Emergency Alerts. “Wireless Emergency Alerts are a more powerful public safety tool than ever before, but I’ve been clear that more should be done to improve the geographic accuracy of these life-saving messages,” said Chairman Pai. “I am pleased that ATIS has heeded my call by developing recommendations to help ensure that these alerts reach all and only those in the affected communities during emergencies. I urge providers to promptly explore implementation of these measures while ATIS continues its work on additional recommendations due next year.” In September, Chairman Pai sent a letter requesting that ATIS develop best practices to further enhance geo-targeting.
The FCC’s Office of Economics and Analytics released a new paper entitled "Impact Of Broadband Penetration on U.S. Farm Productivity" that finds that broadband availability has significant positive impacts on crop yields and other farm production metrics. The paper analyzes the impact of increased broadband availability in rural areas on the productivity of U.S. farms, drawing on both FCC data on broadband availability by census tract and U.S. Department of Agriculture data on agricultural productivity by county, for key row crops like corn, cotton, hay, and soybeans. It finds statistically significant effects of increased broadband service, both in terms of lower costs (fertilizer, fuel, seed, etc.) and higher production (yield).
In particular, the analysis finds that a 1% increase in the number of 25 Mbps/3 Mbps or better broadband connections per 1,000 households is associated with a 3.6% increase in corn yields, as measured in bushels per acre. It also finds some evidence of cost savings at thresholds of 10 Mbps download and 0.768 Mbps upload speeds. A 1% increase in the number of 10Mpbs/0.768Mbps connections per 1,000 households is associated with a 2.4% decrease in operating expenses per farm operation. The paper also provides an introductory look at changes in the composition and speed thresholds of connectivity available for selected field crops over time.
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The Regulatory Mix, Inteserra’s blog of telecom related regulatory activities, is a snapshot of PUC, FCC, legislative, and occasionally court issues that our regulatory monitoring team uncovers each day. Depending on their significance, some items may be the subject of an Inteserra Briefing.