FCC broadband map challenges near 350,000 as deadline looms

States have already submitted more than 300,000 location challenges since the Federal Communications Commission opened the door for them to request corrections to its new and improved broadband map. But as a deadline for availability challenges looms, some states said they’ve encountered issues with the submission process. The FCC said that while individual challenges are visible on its broadband map interface, it is not reporting aggregate figures about the challenges it has received. More than 344,000 challenges have been filed between nine states. But given there are dozens of other states unaccounted for, the real number could actually be far, far higher. The representative from Vermont, for instance, said the state’s broadband team suffered a setback in compiling its challenges after the FCC released the second version of its location fabric. “The data is suddenly different as of Dec. 20 [2022] than what they have been working with all along, causing them to have to re-work all the challenges at the last minute,” the representative said. “So, we’re having big problems with the bulk challenges we are trying to file before the deadline.”