Broadband Deployment Accuracy and Technological Availability (DATA) Act

In June, the Biden administration allocated $42.45 billion in Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) funding among states—the largest single pot of federal broadband spending in our country’s history. Biden officials at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) made these allocations despite repeated requests from lawmakers and communities across the country to first improve the data underlying NTIA’s funding decisions.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is requiring state broadband offices to have one final mapping challenge at the state level before the state can issue the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) grants. This final challenge is the one that folks have been waiting for since the NTIA suggests that there can be a challenge against the claimed broadband speeds. My consulting firm has been working with communities, and we are still seeing a lot of inaccurate information.

Virginia Tech bested the Federal Communications Commission in mapping the commonwealth’s broadband needs. The prize: an additional $250 million in federal money to help fill those high-speed internet voids. The Virginia Tech’s Center for Geospatial Information Technology calculated that the FCC had undercounted by 180,000 underserved locations and challenged the numbers. The FCC conceded about 80,000 locations that are now eligible for support from the Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act’s (IIJA) Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program.

A tour of the remaining United States Digital Divide from a home in Quincy (CA) to an unserved farm in Newton (NC) to a home in Troy (AL).  These locations (and more) are from a random sample of BEAD-eligible unserved and underserved locations that are not part of the Federal Communications Commission's Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) or Alternative Connect America Model (A-CAM) programs. 

An AI expert suggested that AI could be used to produce better broadband maps. I had to chuckle at that idea. The primary reason for my amusement is that Federal Communications Commission maps are created from self-reported broadband coverage and speeds by the many internet service providers (ISP) in the country. ISPs have a variety of motivations for how and why they report data to the FCC. Some ISPs try to report accurate speeds and coverage.

Two non-traditional investors are partnering to provide Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) matching funds and to directly invest in broadband for communities that do not win government grants. One of the entities is Connect Humanity, a non-profit fund focused on digital equity.

On behalf of the Missouri Association of Councils of Government, we provide evidence for bulk challenges of broadband availability claims by licensed fixed wireless access (LFWA) providers across Missouri where LFWA service claims contribute to three-quarters of broadband providers' overstatements of service. We urge the FCC to reverse the burden of proof, requiring that ISPs substantiate their claims rather than saddling communities with the near impossibility of proving a negative across such a wide geographic area.

The Federal Communications Commission's Office of Economics and Analytics (OEA) and the Wireline Competition Bureau (WCB) initiated the urban rate survey for 2024. The information collected in this survey will be used to develop voice and broadband reasonable comparability benchmarks that will be in place in 2024. The FCC will be collecting the rates offered by a random sample of providers of fixed services identified using December 2022 data filed in the FCC Broadband Data Collection (BDC) tool.

The Federal Communications Commission's Broadband Data Task Force, Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, Wireline Competition Bureau, and the Office of Economics and Analytics seek comment on a Petition for Extension of Waiver (Petition) filed by the Competitive Carriers Association (CCA) and USTelecom – The Broadband Association (USTelecom and, together with CCA, Petitioners).