AT&T, T-Mobile US and Verizon said a proposal from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to collect more detailed data about US mobile broadband deployments would “greatly increase burdens on providers” without yielding any concrete benefit.

The commission in August adopted a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking designed to improve collection of mobile and fixed broadband deployment data, currently completed via Form 477 filings. Form 477 requires subscriber data to be collected on a state level, but the FCC proposed gathering subscription data on a deeper geographic (so-called census tract) level to help it better evaluate mobile competition.

In recent filings with the commission, however, the three operators argued the implementation of more granular reporting requirements drilling down to the census tract level simply “won’t work” since the addresses of mobile subscribers don’t necessarily reflect where they use their service. T-Mobile and Verizon both pointed out tracking customers on family, prepaid and business plans would be particularly problematic. For example, Verizon noted: “college towns could underreport the number of subscribers in a highly mobile-connected population when students remain on family plans.”

T-Mobile wrote: “Mobile users often use their mobile broadband and telephony services hundreds or even thousands of miles away from their billing addresses, whether running errands, at work, visiting friends and family locally or out-of-state, or retaining their number when moving to another state.”

Thus, the operators argued the resulting data could actually prove less accurate than the information the FCC receives today. Additionally, operators don’t currently collect subscriber information on the census tract level, which the operators said means they would face an “enormous burden” in developing the systems to produce it.

Though the information filed on Form 477 is public, the operators also urged the FCC to redact information which is confidential or “competitively sensitive”, such as geographically granular mobile data speed details.

The tussle over mobile reporting comes as more US households eschew traditional wired broadband connections. According to figures from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention cited in the FCC’s 20th Mobile Wireless Competition Report, approximately 51 per cent of US households were wireless only.