Data & Mapping

How the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) will allocate the 10% of the BEAD funding ($4.25 billion) set aside for high-cost locations has to be an estimate because the NTIA hasn’t shared guidance on how it plans to do that calculation. On a closer reading of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), I want to offer a possible — even likely — scenario where certain states get almost no funding in the high-cost allocation because their Unserved locations are dispersed and not concentrated.

Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar (R-TX) applauded the signing of crucial legislation giving his office greater flexibility and resources as he works to expand access to reliable high-speed internet throughout Texas.

Recently Mike Conlow discussed how cellular companies are reporting large numbers of passings on the Federal Communications Commission's broadband maps as having the capability to receive exactly 25/3 Mbps. That isn’t a very fast broadband speed, so why does this make any difference? It turns out that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is using the number of locations with speeds under 25/3 Mbps to allocate the $42.5 Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) grant dollars between states. The problem is that, in many cases, the claimed speeds are not

An analysis of data from the latest version of the Federal Communications Commission's National Broadband Map, which the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) will use to allocate $42.5 billion in Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) funding later in June 2023, reveals some interesting trends that affect rural customers. The data shows that Texas has 777,115 “unserved” Broadband Serviceable Locations (BSLs).  Texas has 364,991 BSLs that are considered “underserved,” meaning that they are able to receive broadband service above 25/3 Mbps but below 100/2

Texas lawmakers passed a momentous bill that allocates $1.5 billion to expand internet availability across the state through the new Broadband Infrastructure Fund. If approved by voters in November, that money will be added to an undetermined amount of federal dollars the state will receive. That allocation is slated to be announced by June 30.

For many months, states have raced to add locations to the Federal Communications Commission's National Broadband Map, trying to maximize their allocation of broadband funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). But in a few short weeks, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration will allocate funding and then my prediction is we’ll never hear about “missing locations” again.

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.

The new version of the Federal Communications Commission's National Broadband Map makes a lot of progress on areas with fixed wireless or DSL coverage at speeds of exactly 25/3. Of the 2 million locations that were previously deemed Underserved 42% have moved to Unserved. Thirty-three percent are still Underserved, and 20% have moved to Served at 100/20 or better. Looking specifically at North Carolina, which had almost 10% of these locations (almost 200,000), we can see part of the story.

According to the Federal Communications Commission's new National Broadband Map, there are 8.3 million Unserved locations in the U.S. The FCC published “LBR Wireless” files for 41 states. As I rushed to download the data, I didn’t know what that meant as they hadn’t ever published them before, so I skipped them. I now know that to mean “Licensed by Rule” wireless.

The Federal Communications Commission released Version 2 of the National Broadband Map. Three key takeaways from the latest data: