Blueprints for BEAD: Stakeholders May Use Rebuttal Power to Prevent New Errors in BEAD Maps

By mid June, we will have blown past the halfway mark in the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment challenge process—with more than thirty states having completed their “challenge windows” and another handful set to close imminently. But the “challenge window” is only part of the overall challenge process, and there are reasons for communities to stay engaged with the process even after that window closes. Communities—don’t sleep on the rebuttal window! The mandatory challenge process for states consists of three phases: the challenge window, the rebuttal window, and the determination window. During the challenge window, eligible challengers can present evidence that locations are incorrectly categorized as served, underserved, or served. Those same eligible entities can participate in the rebuttal window, where they supply evidence refuting a challenge that was made by someone else. Not all challenges are created equally. While we might primarily think of challenges that make the map more accurate, some challenges could, in fact, make the map less accurate. The bottom line: it may be up to communities to rebut those challenges.