12 Days of Broadband

12 Days: Broadband Mapping Efforts Ramped up in 2023

FCC staff processed 4.8 million challenges to coverage data and 1.5 million challenges to location data.

Jake Neenan

Dec 25, 2023 — 4 min read

Illustration (misspelled words and all) by DALL-E

December 25, 2023 – The Federal Communications Commission continued to refine its broadband coverage maps in 2023. The process drew heavy scrutiny because of its importance to state-level allocations for the Biden administration’s $42.5 billion broadband expansion effort.

In 2020, the Broadband DATA Act mandated the FCC create maps that don’t simply take as fact the inflated coverage claims of internet service providers. The first version of the map was released in November 2022, but the task of mapping every home and business in the United States and determining their broadband access is a daunting one, and the map still included many incorrectly marked locations.

The 12 Days of Broadband 2023 (click to open)

On the First Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
One Artificial General Intelligence
On the Second Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
24 Reverse-Preemption Pole Attachment States (2023 edition)
On the Third Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
$3.6 Billion Funds Remaining in the Affordable Connectivity Program
On the Fourth Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
4.8 Million Challenges to Broadband Coverage Data
On the Fifth Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
56 States and Territorial Broadband Offices Implementing BEAD
On the Sixth Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
One-hundred-and 66 Billion Dollars of American Semiconductor Investment
On the Seventh Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
7 Layers to the Open Systems Interconnection Model and Open Access Networks
On the Eighth Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
The Number 8 As a Representation of Balance, Justice and Fairness
On the Ninth Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
93 Percent Match of Federal Funds for Enabling Middle Mile Broadband Program
On the Tenth Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
Nearly 10 Months Without FCC Spectrum Auction Authority
On the Eleventh Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
More Than 11 Years in Lawsuits Over Net Neutrality
On the Twelfth Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
12 Year Olds (and Older) Having to Age-Verify on Social Media

The commission gave states until January 13 to contest the coverage, but not location, data. Those challenges would be incorporated into an updated version of the map, which would ultimately be used to gauge relative need among states and territories and determine how much BEAD money each would receive. That allocation was slated to be finalized in late June.