Chairman Pai's Response to Members of Congress Regarding the 2019 Broadband Deployment Report

On April 2, 2019, a dozen Members of Congress wrote to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai expressing concern that the FCC's draft 2019 Broadband Deployment Report "may contain serious data inaccuracies that would undermine the validity of its findings." "We note that the FCC has already issued an apparently erroneous press release, dated February 19, that seems to reflect these inaccuracies. We urge you to immediately correct any faulty deployment data or flawed analysis in the draft Report; delay publishing the Report until all necessary changes have been made; and withdraw the Commission's February 19 press release, if the FCC has reason to believe it was inaccurate." The Members of Congress noted Free Press' letter questioning the validity of faulty deployment data from new provider, BarrierFree. 

On May 14, 2019, Chairman Pai responded by discussing how the FCC is actively reviewing how to revise the FCC form 477 data collection process. Meanwhile, he wrote, "When we circulated the draft 2019 Broadband Deployment Report, no one in my office was aware of the erroneous information contained in Barrier Free’s submission. But when staff learned about the inclusion of inaccurate information, staff conducted a thorough review of this initial draft and made appropriate revisions to the report before recirculating a revised report to commissioners earlier [in May]." He concluded by further describing FCC procedure around From 477 data and how it is flagging anomalies.