On July 9, a House subcommittee held a hearing to get an update on how the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is addressing some of the most pressing broadband issues in the country. Here’s what the FCC had to say:

• Mapping: How does the FCC plan to deal with ISPs that overstate their coverage? Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel stressed the Commission will take action against providers that overstate coverage “in a willful, malicious and dishonest way.” But incidental overstatements also exist, and that’s where states can help.
• Affordable Connectivity Program: The government’s Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), which provided a low-cost internet option to more than 23 million households, expired at the end of May. Asked by Rep. Doris Matsui (D-CA) what the FCC is doing to “secure the progress made by ACP,” Chairwoman Rosenworcel said the Commission has reached out to its “outreach partners to make sure that they are aware of alternatives.”
• Preventing Program Overlap: There’s a lot of buzz around the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program, but the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) is also chugging along despite defaults. Although the FCC not letting providers off the hook for paying default penalties, it encouraged them to default sooner rather than later so states can receive the necessary info for BEAD planning.

Starting in February 2021, the Federal Communications Commission embarked upon an agency-wide effort to implement a new Broadband Data Collection (BDC). The BDC is a fundamental change from the FCC’s prior efforts to collect broadband data. As required by Congress in the Broadband Deployment Accuracy and Technological Availability (DATA) Act, the Commission’s rules now require that fixed broadband service providers report broadband availability on a location-by-location basis, and that mobile wireless broadband service providers report their coverage areas using standardized propagation modeling parameters. The BDC also includes—for the first time—mechanisms for entities and individuals to challenge the data on the FCC’s new National Broadband Map (NBM), as well as requirements for the Commission to verify and audit data submitted through the new collection. in this Fourth Report and Order, the FCC adopts rules to codify the challenge process deadline required by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), as well as provide a specific delegation of authority to the Office of Economics and Analytics (OEA), in coordination with certain other bureaus and offices, to conduct audits of broadband data submitted by providers as required under the Broadband DATA Act. The FCC also makes ministerial edits to the existing rules to reference the Broadband Data Collection or BDC.

In April 2024, AT&T learned that customer data was illegally downloaded from our workspace on a third-party cloud platform. The company launched an investigation and engaged leading cybersecurity experts to understand the nature and scope of the criminal activity. Based on its investigation, the compromised data includes files containing AT&T records of calls and texts of nearly all of AT&T’s cellular customers, customers of mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) using AT&T’s wireless network, as well as AT&T’s landline customers who interacted with those cellular numbers between May 1, 2022 - October 31, 2022. The compromised data also includes records from January 2, 2023, for a very small number of customers. The data does not contain the content of calls or texts, personal information such as Social Security numbers, dates of birth, or other personally identifiable information. At this time, AT&T does not believe that the data is publicly available.