Data & Mapping

I have been complaining for years about the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) mapping rule that allow internet service providers (ISPs) to claim marketing speeds instead of something closer to actual speeds. That allows ISPs to report speeds that benefit them in some manner rather than being truthful to the public. There have been big consequences as a result of this FCC decision. Historically, the maps didn't mean much, as they were only used for the FCC's reports to Congress.

Leichtman Research Group, which has published well-regarded quarterly tallies of U.S.

The Federal Communications Commission's Office of Economics and Analytics released data related to the price, subscription rates, and plan characteristics of the internet service offerings of participating providers in the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), as required by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.  These data were collected through the ACP Transparency Data Collection and are available for download on the FCC’s website at https://www.fcc.gov/affordable-connectivity-program.

The Federal Communications Commission recently released the 4th version of the National Broadband Map, with data as of December 2023. At a high level, the trend continues of fewer and fewer unserved and underserved locations: in the previous version, 10.1 million locations were unserved or unserved. Now, with six months more data, we’re down to 8.8 million locations needing better broadband service.

Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel shared with her colleagues an Order and Declaratory Ruling that updates the FCC’s biannual data collection and audit processes and proposes further updates to the agency’s verification processes for its National Broadband Map. The circulated item:

Representatives of NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association met with Hayley Steffen, legal advisor to Commissioner Anna Gomez for wireline and space, to discuss the impacts of unreliable Broadband Data Collection (“BDC”) data and “broadband overreach” on policy and funding decisions made by the Federal Communications Commission and provided a series of recommendations related to broadband availability mapping and BDC processes. While the FCC decided in 2021 that what a provider “makes available” would be determined by reference to a provider’s “advertised” levels of performance, and while it de

On May 16, 2024, Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel appeared before the House of Representatives Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee to review the Federal Communications Commission’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget request. The Chairwoman highlighted some of the FCC's critical work, including the National Broadband Map and efforts to stop robocalls. She also emphasized the need for the FCC's spectrum auction authority to be reinstated, and spoke about the impending end of the Affordable Connectivity Program.

Broadband providers’ upstream capacity continues to be subject to ongoing increases in consumption that are putting more pressure on the most capacity-constrained parts of the network—a key takeaway from this first quarter 2024 edition of the OpenVault Broadband Insights (OVBI) report.

This report summarizes information about Internet access in the United States as of June 30, 2022, as collected by FCC Form 477 and the Broadband Data Collection (BDC). [For purposes of this report, Internet access is defined as a service that allows information to be sent to or received from the Internet with a speed of at least 200 kilobits per second.] Total connections increased by about 3.4% between June 2021 and June 2022 to 517 million.

The Federal Communications Commission's Wireline Competition Bureau (Bureau) updated guidance regarding location and broadband coverage in the Enhanced Alternative Connect America Model (Enhanced ACAM) mechanism. Specifically, to best reflect deployment as of the August 30, 2023 offer, the Bureau will use FCC Broadband Data Collection broadband availability data as of June 30, 2023 to determine deployment obligations and support for locations in the December 2023 Serviceable Location Fabric for which such availability data are available.