No one was more surprised than I to see data collection requirements in the NTIA’s Notice of Funds Availability (NOFA) for the Rural Utilities Service’s (RUS) Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP) and the Broadband Technology Opportunities Programs (BTOP):

Awardees receiving Last Mile or Middle Mile Broadband Infrastructure grants must report, for each specific BTOP project, on the following:

1. The terms of any interconnection agreements entered into during the reporting period;
2. Traffic exchange relationships (e.g., peering) and terms;
3. Broadband equipment purchases;
4. Total and peak utilization of access links;
5. Total and peak utilization on interconnection links to other networks;
6. Internet protocol address utilization and IPv6 implementation;
7. Any changes or updates to their network management practices;

Incumbents have fought hard against far less onerous data collection requirements — indeed, the above requirements in part kept incumbents away from applying for BTOP funds. So the pragmatist in me cannot imagine these requirements actually being enforced, much less extended to existing providers of access to the public Internet as part of the national broadband plan, which the FCC owes Congress by February 17th. However, the researcher in me can imagine such requirements, in conjunction with privacy-sensitive data sharing frameworks (e.g., one we’ve proposed), positively transforming the state of Internet science and cybersecurity. Kudos to NTIA for this earnest attempt to improve the transparency of an industry more opaque than the financial sector (for similar reasons, and in the face of just as profound risks).

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