The effect of "maximum advertised speed" on coverage numbers

With $37 billion of the $42 billion in Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program based on the number of locations unserved by broadband, accurately measuring who is unserved is critical — both for the allocation of funds, but, more importantly, so people without access to real broadband can be connected. Overall, there are 2,043,676 locations that are unserved but for the presence of a fixed wireless or DSL service that claims to deliver 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload on the number (max advertised speed = 25/3 exactly). For the purposes of the BEAD program, a location is served (but underserved) if a provider offers service at a “maximum advertised speed” of 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload from a wired connection or through wireless using a licensed spectrum. “Maximum advertised speed” is the throughput that the provider tells the Federal Communications Commission they can offer to the location. The FCC publishes an excellent report called Measuring Broadband America which analyzes whether providers are delivering the throughput that they advertise. It finds that cable and fiber providers generally provide the throughput advertised but DSL service can be as low as 72% of the advertised throughput. Unfortunately, the MBA report has a small sample size and doesn’t have a category for fixed wireless (FWA) providers. FWA coverage can be difficult in hilly terrain, or when foliage obstructs the signal’s path to the home. There have been technical advances in FWA radios that improve throughputs in non-line-of-site situations. Still, signal loss is real. At the national level, if we consider an offering of exactly 25/3 from FWA or DSL to be unserved instead of underserved, we would add 2,043,676 unserved locations to the national map. Some states have a lot of them. North Carolina has 193,049 locations that would be unserved if the 25/3 FWA/DSL offering were excluded. It’s unclear to me if there’s anything that can be done about this issue (or even if others agree it is an issue). The FCC has set a high bar for “availability challenges” — challenges to what the provider offers at a location. It’s an unpopular opinion, but it’s understandable, in my view, that the FCC wouldn’t use “speed test” data from random phones and laptops on Wifi as concrete evidence that the advertised service isn’t delivered to the router. What then is the path to validate the “maximum advertised speed” claims made by providers in the data? It’s unclear to me.