Broadband Deployment Accuracy and Technological Availability (DATA) Act

Billions of dollars are up for grabs to expand broadband availability across the country. But the Federal Communication Commission maps that will determine where the money goes are inaccurate, according to the Texas comptroller, because internet service providers inflated their coverage areas. The Texas office charged with challenging and improving those maps at the state level says it can’t.

I suspect that there are already a lot of communities and other folks who are in violation of the license agreement to view and use the new Federal Communications Commission mapping fabric and associated data. CostQuest, the firm that created the mapping fabric, has provided communities and others with a basic license to view and utilize the mapping data strictly for the purpose of the Broadband Data Collection (BDC) process – for reviewing and challenging the FCC maps. Anybody that wants to use the mapping data for any other purpose must sign a different agreement and pay to utilize the da

In November 2022, the Federal Communications Commission released our pre-production draft of its new broadband maps. For the first time ever, the maps reflect broadband availability at the physical location level. In fact, prior FCC maps only provided this information at the census-block level. That means these new maps provide the best picture available to date of where broadband is and is not available across the country, and the maps will only get better over time as the FCC gets input from stakeholders across the country.

There is a mountain of complaints to be made about the Federal Communications Commission's new National Broadband Map. In some parts of the country, there are a lot of missing rural locations, including entire subdivisions. Close analysis of the map shows what folks in the broadband world have always known, but were unable to prove, that the big cable companies and telcos don’t cover everybody. It is these unserved folks in the middle of cities that I call the hidden unserved locations. These little pockets came about for a variety of reasons.

The Broadband Map Integrity service is a new offering is designed to help states, municipalities, schools, and other interested parties to quickly and efficiently submit challenges to the recently-released FCC maps, the Broadband Serviceable Location Fabric (Fabric), that will inform the allocation of $42.5 billion in BEAD (Broadband Equity Access and Deployment) grants.

When the Federal Communications Commission's new broadband maps came out, we were quick to compare the number of unserved locations in the new maps to the number of unserved housing units in the previous Form 477 data. As expected, the number of unserved locations doubled, from 3.6 million to 7.8 million. But that comparison isn’t apples-to-apples.

In a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, 110 organizations representing broadband, housing, education, healthcare, libraries, and state and local governments called for urgent action to ensure unserved households in multifamily residential housing (MDUs) and community anchor institutions (CAIs) are correctly designated in the recently released FCC National Broadband Map. The groups raised serious concerns about the accuracy of the current FCC National Broadband Map and the subsequent challenge process.

The Federal Communications Commission released a new national broadband map, which is supposed to help consumers see their options for internet service. Just as important, the map will be used to help determine where some $42.5 billion in federal funds will go to build out better access in places where high-speed, affordable broadband is lacking. The map has quickly become a battleground for states, including Colorado, New York, and Vermont, which say it doesn’t accurately reflect how many of their citizens lack fast access to the internet.

Washington state’s three funding partners working to expand broadband access to all businesses and residents are asking the public to help check Federal Communications Commission data in a recently published National Broadband Map. The Washington State Broadband Office (WSBO), Community Economic Revitalization Board (CERB), and Public Works Board (PWB) said the accuracy of this map is essential to future broadband funding in Washington, in particular, up to an estimated $900 million in federal Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) funding. All Washington residents are encouraged t

The Federal Communications Commission's new broadband maps give us a view of what the broadband competition situation is in the United States. We want to answer the question of how many options a household has for broadband service. Using the new maps, and a 100 Mbps download and 20 upload throughput as the threshold for acceptable broadband, 37% of households have access to one offering, 34% have access to two offerings, and 18% have access to three or more offerings. This is slightly more concentration than was present in the most recent Form 477 data.