CostQuest says NY locations missing from FCC broadband map a fraction of total count

New York State’s broadband office recently made headlines when it revealed it found more than 31,000 locations missing from the foundational fabric the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is using to produce new broadband coverage maps. But while that figure might seem like a lot, a CostQuest representative said that number amounts to less than 1% of the state’s total location count. The FCC hired CostQuest to provide a map of all the serviceable locations in the country over which the agency could layer coverage data supplied by operators. By combining the two, the FCC is aiming to create a more accurate accounting of unserved locations in each state. The FCC unveiled an initial version of the fabric in September 2022 and opened the door for states, operators, and other interested parties to challenge it. New York State took it up on the offer, stating it found 31,798 locations missing from the CostQuest-supplied fabric. The state identified the locations by comparing data from its own broadband maps to the FCC data. All of the 31,000-plus locations which were missing were among the 138,598 locations listed as unserved on the state’s map. CostQuest VP Mike Wilson said the company couldn’t address whether the FCC would accept or reject New York’s challenge. But he noted the locations it identified represented “about 0.66% of the total of more than 4.7 million locations” it counted in the state for the first version of the fabric. Wilson explained this figure falls “in line with what we would expect as a potential error rate” for the initial fabric. He added, “Version 2 and future versions of the Fabric will bring continual improvements."