The weird cable coverage submission in Arkansas

If you zoom into Pine Bluff, Arkansas, on the Federal Communication Commission’s broadband map, it doesn’t take long to realize something doesn’t look right. While the new map shows broadband service at individual locations, we’d still generally expect a broadband provider (ISP) that serves one location to serve the location next door, up to the edge of their network. This map doesn’t look right. All the green dots on this map have the cable offering; all the red ones don’t. That means all of these red dots will be included in the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) allocation to Arkansas for unserved locations. The problem isn’t limited to Pine Bluff. In all of WEHCO Video’s service territory (the company has different names in each city), the same pattern is visible. Maybe WEHCO uploaded its subscriber list instead of its coverage area, or it did a particularly haphazard match between its coverage area addresses and the FCC’s Fabric addresses.  My understanding is that the FCC is aware of this issue. I assume it will be corrected in the next version of the National Broadband Map, but it will be easy enough to confirm. Overall, I view this as evidence of a process that is working. However, it does highlight that there is less attention and incentives to fix certain types of errors in the map.