FCC Providing Broadband Data to NTIA Mapping Grantees

The Federal Communications Commission has adopted rules to facilitate the broadband mapping and other projects that eligible entities are undertaking under the Broadband Data Improvement Act (BDIA) to improve available data on broadband deployment and adoption. The FCC says "we balance access to Commission collected data with important safeguards against improper disclosure."

The FCC found that: 1) the broadband data that it shares with eligible entities should be aggregated to create complementary sets of data, and 2) the sensitivity of much of the data, and their potential to reveal provider-specific data even in aggregated form, warrant certain protective measures, including data-sharing firewalls, to minimize the risk of inappropriate or inadvertent disclosure of the competitively sensitive information that the BDIA directs us to share with the state grantees.