The Latest FCC Maps

Anybody who is intimately familiar with the Federal Communications Commission's National Broadband Map knows that there is a lot of fiction buried in the reporting. There is one huge flaw in the FCC mapping system that has carried over from the previous FCC mapping regime—internet service providers (ISP) self-report the speeds they can deliver. Per the FCC mapping rules, ISPs can claim broadband marketing speeds rather than some approximation of actual speeds. In every county where I’ve delved deep into the local situation, I’ve found multiple ISPs that are overclaiming broadband speeds. ISPs vary widely in how they report broadband speeds to the FCC. I’m always instantly suspicious of any ISP that claims exactly 100/20 Mbps broadband since that conveniently classifies those locations as served. An ISP making that claim is telling the FCC that everybody in their service footprint already has adequate broadband and that there is no need to give grant money to anybody to compete with them. A second flaw in the FCC maps is the coverage areas claimed by ISPs. The FCC is counting on public broadband challenges or challenges by State Broadband Offices to somehow fix this problem—but that’s an unrealistic hope. It’s going to be interesting to see how States react to these final counts. There have been rumors about states ready to sue the FCC and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration if they feel these maps will cheat them out of funding. An even bigger issue is if the FCC maps will be used to determine the locations that are grant eligible—because that would be a travesty.