Mapping Broadband: What Does It Mean for Service to Be “Available”?

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration has now given 48 states the green light to start their required Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program challenge process to refine the list of locations that will be eligible for BEAD funding. The starting point for the states is the Federal Communications Commission’s National Broadband Map, based on its Broadband Data Collection (BDC), with the state-run challenge process providing stakeholders the opportunity to make updates and corrections. The current system is stacked against parties seeking to challenge areas that are reported in the BDC as served. Even though NTIA is giving states more flexibility to develop their own ground-truth that varies from the FCC map, it still is hard to mount a successful challenge. The burden is on the challenger to present evidence that something doesn’t exist. Even though many states have adopted the option to shift the burden of proof to the reporting provider if a specified number of challenges are filed in a given area, flipping locations to “unserved” on a broad scale remains hard to do as a practical matter.