Background

John Busby is the Managing Director of BroadbandNow, where millions of consumers find and compare local internet options and independent research is published about the digital divide. John directs the work of BroadbandNow Research, including its landmark independent audits of FCC broadband availability data. Recognizing flaws in the FCC’s self-reported Form 477 methodology, John’s team manually checked more than 58,000 addresses against provider availability tools, over 110,000 individual address-provider verifications, and found that at least 42 million Americans do not have access to terrestrial broadband, nearly double the federal government’s estimate at the time. An earlier phase of the audit found the FCC underestimated the unserved population by 50%.

John is a vocal advocate for accurate, address-level broadband mapping and for modernizing the federal definition of broadband to 100 Mbps download / 25 Mbps upload, arguing that the legacy 25/3 standard fails the realities of telehealth, remote work and distance learning. He discussed these recommendations in depth in a Broadband Breakfast interview on FCC data errors.

Research directed by John has informed the national broadband policy conversation. It has been cited in written testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, in the Georgetown Law Poverty Journal, and by policy organizations including The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. John has been quoted in The New York Times on internet infrastructure during the COVID-19 quarantine, and BroadbandNow’s research has been covered by The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and VICE.

John is a frequent speaker at industry and policy events. He delivered a special address, “Crowdsourced Audit of FCC’s Broadband Availability Claims,” at the Broadband Measurement Summit in Washington, D.C., presenting alongside officials from the FCC and NTIA, and has joined the Gigabit Libraries Network’s “Libraries in Recovery” series to discuss broadband access. He was also the inaugural guest on The BroadbandNow Podcast, discussing local broadband initiatives and pandemic-era telecom policy.

Professional Background & Education

Before BroadbandNow, John was Head of Analytics and Insights for AmazonFresh, leading a team of data scientists, business intelligence engineers, analysts and product managers across the service’s operations in the U.S., Japan, England and Germany. Prior to Amazon, he spent more than 13 years at Marchex, rising from Director of Product Management to Senior Vice President of Marketing & Analytics. Along the way he launched the company’s first-generation pay-per-call advertising platform and early speech analytics products, and led the Marchex Institute, whose data-driven studies on consumer behavior and mobile advertising — including an analysis of 1.2 million consumer phone calls — were covered by more than 300 news outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic and NPR. He presented at more than 25 industry conferences, appeared on The Wall Street Journal’s “Digits,” and contributed regularly to AdAge and MediaPost.

John began his career at IQC.com (IQ Chart), a four-person startup building stock-charting software for individual investors, where he ran marketing, PR, operations and customer service as the company grew 500% in twelve months before its 1999 acquisition by Go2Net. He went on to product and program management roles at Go2Net and InfoSpace.

Previously Published

John has directed some of the most frequently cited independent research on broadband availability in the U.S.: