  As demand for broadband service increases in emerging regions, high-capacity
wireless links can accelerate and cost-reduce the deployment of new networks
(both backhaul and customer site connection). Such links are increasingly
common in developed countries, but their reliability in emerging regions is
questioned where very heavy tropical rain is present. Here, we investigate the
robustness of the standard (ITU-R P.837-6) method for estimating rain rates
using an expanded test dataset. We illustrate how bias/variance issues cause
problematic predictions at higher rain rates. We confirm (by construction) that
an improved rainfall climatology can largely address these prediction issues
without compromising standard ITU fit evaluation metrics.
