The FOIA Blog points out that a number of Freedom of Information Act requests (by academics and industry watchdogs) to the FCC to gain access to a directory of U.S. broadband providers have been deined under the exemption for trade secrets/confidential business information.
There have been a few times in previous posts where I have claimed that a large number of Americans have limited choice when it comes to broadband service–these data would put that debate to rest.
As an academic, I’m also sure that this sort of data would be helpful to researchers studying the media effects of the Internet…at least by creating an easy metric by which one could tell how “wired” a particular community is.
For anyone interested, the case to watch here is:
Center for Public Integrity v. Federal Communications Commission (District of Columbia)