STATEMENT OF
COMMISSIONER DEBORAH TAYLOR TATE
Re: Development of Nationwide Broadband Data to Evaluate Reasonable and Timely 
Deployment of Advanced Services to All Americans, Improvement of Wireless Broadband 
Subscribership Data, and Development of Data on Interconnected Voice over Internet 
Protocol (VoIP) Subscribership, WC Docket No. 07-38, Report and Order and Further 
Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.
Broadband deployment to all Americans should be one of our top priorities, 
and improving our data collection is logically a good first step.
I welcome our efforts to improve our data collection, thereby creating the 
opportunity for the improved empirical analysis of broadband services and 
policy.  We need to make sure we collect relevant data.  The primary goal of 
improving our data collection ability is to better measure the availability of 
broadband services across the U.S. so that we can make better-informed 
policymaking decisions.  
Our current ZIP code data provides us with trend information, but as the 
broadband market has evolved we now want to provide a more complete 
picture.  For the broadband data collection effort to be complete, we need 
more granular data collection as provided by the rules we adopt today.    
Dozens of States have taken on or are exploring the task themselves, 
particularly through public-private partnerships.  My own home State of 
Tennessee has initiated such an effort.  It is important that the Commission 
not hamper or undermine these initiatives that are being undertaken by State 
and local governments.    
While I fully recognize and support the need for the Commission to continue 
to update the evolving speeds and definitions of broadband as the 
marketplace develops, we must also be cognizant of any unintended 
consequences to programs that rely on our current definitions.  To insure that 
everyone- even those with lower speeds or older technologies- is counted, 
and also to insure that by adopting new definitions today we do not disrupt 
any of the funding opportunities- whether through the FCC, the Department 
of Agriculture, Department of Commerce, Department of Health and Human 
Services, Department of Education, Appalachian Regional Commission, or 
even State grants- I would have preferred to move this to the Further Notice  
so that we could be certain these definitional changes are only for the 
positive.  Thus I concur in this section of the Order.