Broadband Mapping & Data
FCC Releases National Broadband Map Amid Controversy
To correct for inevitable errors, the FCC is soliciting challenges to the map’s provider-submitted data.

WASHINGTON, November 18, 2022 – The Federal Communications Commission released the initial version of its long-anticipated national broadband map, which currently shows broadband provider-reported availability data for locations nationwide that will be updated based on challenges submitted by the public.
The map displays address-level performance and provider data for fixed and mobile broadband as well as data aggregated to larger areas – e.g., state, county, census place, and congressional district. Data can be examined by navigating the map’s digital interface or by searching by state or address. The map also displays coverage data by provider.
To correct for inevitable errors, the FCC is soliciting challenges to the map’s provider-submitted data.
Based on the FCC’s mapping data, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration will allot to the states grants from the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program, a $42.45 fund authorized by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021.
To ensure valid challenges are incorporated into the map before allocation decisions are made, the NTIA encouraged the public to submit challenges by January 13, 2023.
Once the states receive BEAD grants, they will run sub-grant programs that will designate funds for individual broadband-deployment and related projects. Many states already have their own broadband maps, which will likely factor heavily into the final disbursal of BEAD funds to projects. What’s more, they are not required to follow the FCC’s lead and can more heavily rely on speed-test data if they see fit.
The map is based on the “fabric,” a nationwide dataset of all locations at which fixed broadband is or could be installed. It created by the commission’s contractor, CostQuest Associates. The FCC began accepting challenges to the fabric’s data in September.
Challenges to the FCC’s fabric
Speaking on Thursday at Broadband Breakfast’s Digital Infrastructure Investment conference, CostQuest CEO James Stegeman acknowledged that state broadband offices may be hamstrung by commercial agreements they have with data vendors if they decide to challenge the agency’s data.
The dilemma comes when state broadband offices say that they could be in legal trouble challenging the FCC’s mapping data because third-party data vendor won’t allow its data to land in the hands of competitor CostQuest.
“It is a concern, but I’m not sure how you address that concern,” Stegeman said. “It is not necessarily the FCC’s issue – it’s really those third parties who present issues to the states.”
After New York announced in late October that it had submitted more than 31,500 missing locations, Fierce Telecom reported that CostQuest Vice President Mike Wilson said New York’s challenges cover a very small percentage – about 0.66 percent – of total locations in the state.
According to Wilson, New York’s challenges are “in line with what we would expect as a potential error rate” for the fabric’s first draft.
Wilson, industry experts, and the FCC itself have emphasized the importance of the challenge process’s iterative nature to creating a high-quality national broadband map.
But can states fully participate in the fabric-challenge process?
The effectiveness of the challenge process depends on the ability of states and other stakeholders to energetically participate in the challenge process, however. On a recent Broadband Breakfast Live Online panel, Adam Carpenter, chief data officer of the Montana Department of Administration, said that many states are contractually barred from doing so.
According to Carpenter, Montana leases proprietary mapping data – data needed to fully participate in the fabric-challenge process – from a state contractor. Licensing agreements, however, prevent the sharing of this data as a challenge to the FCC since, per contractual agreements, CostQuest may lease challenge data for use in its commercial mapping products.
“If you’re leasing that data from a private entity, you can’t just hand it over to another private entity,” Carpenter said. “And that’s put us in a position where we’re either not going to challenge the FCC map, we’re going to violate our contract and we get sued, or we’re going to work some deal where we partially challenge the FCC map where it favors us.”
Carpenter said many states share Montana’s predicament.
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Broadband Mapping & Data
State Officials Highlight Discrepancies Between Updated FCC Map and Ground Truth
There are ‘locations where we know it is not possible to receive that level of service,’ said Maine’s broadband authority.

WASHINGTON, June 9, 2023 – State broadband officials are finding discrepancies between what they see on the ground and what the Federal Communications Commission’s new national broadband map released last week reports.
The new version of the map identifies nearly 330,000 new unserved locations and updates availability data for more than 3 million locations. According to the FCC’s statement, the new version has resolved 75 percent of the issues raised since November and reflects more than a million new serviced locations. It will be the basis for Broadband Equity Access and Deployment program awards.
“Version two of the map is a step in the right direction but will never be perfect when it is based on a snapshot of the availability of service from technologies that are very dynamic,” said Deputy Director of Vermont Community Broadband Board, Rob Fish in comments to Broadband Breakfast.
Vermont is taking time to absorb the information in the map seeing as there are discrepancies between what the state sees on the ground and what the map shows, said Fish. There are still challenges that need to be resolved by the FCC, which, when talking about billions of dollars in a small state, can make a huge difference, he said.
Maine Connect Authority said in a statement to Broadband Breakfast that they were “disappointed to see claims of advertised speeds at locations where we know it is not possible to receive that level of service.” The state will continue to improve the map through citizen engagement, partner collaboration, and the FCC challenge process.
“We believe there is opportunity to incorporate more diverse data sources in the future,” said Andrew Butcher, director of Maine Connect Authority, referring to crowdsourced speed tests. “It is unfortunate that this work will not be counted toward our BEAD Allocation dollars.”
‘Neither accurate nor precise’
Sascha Meinrath, telecommunications professor at Penn State University, said in an email that the maps “are neither accurate – they vastly overstate service availability – nor precise – with failure rates of 10 to 20 percent in correctly identifying rural broadband serviceable locations and huge problems correctly identifying homes versus garages in many cities.”
Meinrath also claimed that the maps “completely whitewash underservicing of communities of color in our urban cores; all while failing to provide any pricing information, much less any overlay of demographic information.”
President and Founder of tech consultant Reid Consulting Group Tom Reid expressed his agreement in an email, stating that the maps have made no significant improvement since previous maps based on Form 477 data-collection and that “the difference this time is that so many policy makers perceive the new maps to be better.”
Reid suggested that the precision of the fabric locations, which simply maps the broadband serviceable locations and does not contain coverage claims, is falsely translated into accuracy with the coverage claims.
Industry groups expressed support for a ‘success story’ of broadband
The Wireless Internet Service Providers Association expressed its support of the map, claiming that it “tells the success story of the vibrant and growing ISP broadband industry.”
US Telecom CEO Jonathan Spalter said in a statement that “the data contained in this version of the National Broadband Map will no doubt be an important tool to reach 100 percent connectivity.”
The BEAD awards to states are expected to be announced June 30. States will allocate subgrants based on new iterations of FCC maps and state-collected data which will be available through a state challenge process.
Broadband Mapping & Data
Tom Reid: Accountability in Broadband Maps Necessary for BEAD to Achieve Mission
The sheer magnitude of the overstatements in the FCC’s map makes the challenge process untenable.

With millions of American households stranded in the digital desert, we need to achieve accountability in broadband to make sure the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment funding achieves its mission. The broadband gaps can be readily identified despite the air of mystery surrounding the topic.
Broadband improvements have been constrained for decades by inaccurate maps, yet the Federal Communications Commission continues to accept dramatically exaggerated availability and capacity claims from internet service providers. The cumbersome challenge process requires consumers and units of government to prove a negative — a logical fallacy.
The Reid Consulting Group and other parties, including Microsoft, have developed robust algorithms to reliably identify actual broadband availability. RCG utilizes Ookla Speedtest Intelligence data due to the large quantity of consumer-initiated tests. In Ohio, as an example, we draw on more than 16 million speed tests reflecting the lived experience from millions of households. We combine the speed test findings with FCC and Census data to deliver irrefutable identification of unserved and underserved locations.
Such methodologies offer State Broadband Leaders the opportunity to reverse the burden of proof in the BEAD program, requiring that ISPs submit concrete evidence supporting their availability and speed claims. As an example, in Ohio, RCG’s maps were accepted as proof of unserved status for the 2022 state grant program. BroadbandOhio then required ISPs to submit substantial proof in their challenge process. In other words, the ISP’s were tasked with proving a positive instead of expecting citizens to prove a negative.
ISPs and the FCC denounce crowdsourced data unless conducted under unusually restrictive conditions. The ISPs have successfully promoted unsubstantiated myths regarding the value of consumer-initiated speed tests.
Myth: Bad tests are because of poor Wi-Fi.
Reality: RCG eliminates speed tests with weak Wi-Fi and includes GPS enabled wired devices. Even first-generation Wi-Fi would saturate a 25 Megabits per second download and 3 Mbps upload connection.
Myth: Residents only subscribe to low-speed packages.
Reality: According to the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, in areas where rural electric cooperatives offer broadband, 25 to 33 percent of rural subscribers opt for the top speed tier offered. We can clearly see this trend in areas where fiber has been deployed in recent years, as described later in this article.
Myth: People only test when there is a problem.
Reality: Network problems prompt tests, as do resolutions of problems. RCG recommends focusing on the maximum speed test results to eliminate this “unhappy customer effect.”
Finding the truth: Broadband and the lived experience
In Ohio, RCG analyzed more than 14 million consumer-initiated speed tests over a three-year period. The data reveals a clear pattern of carrier overstatement. The stark visual contrast between the two maps is hard to ignore — and while this study is focused on Ohio, the issue remains nationwide in scope. The sheer magnitude of the overstatements makes the FCC challenge process untenable.

Figure 1: Ohio Broadband Reality vs. FCC ISP stated coverage map.
RCG utilized the “maximum speeds ever seen” at a location for generating maps and coverage figures, but we also examined the results from the average of speed test. Switching between average and maximum speeds does not change the overall picture of broadband availability. As an example, Figure 2 focuses on an area around Bolivar, Missouri. Looking at the maximum speed turns Bolivar itself a deeper green, meaning “better served,” but the rural areas around Bolivar remain predominantly red, meaning “unserved.” The preponderance of evidence clearly demonstrates that much of the rural area around Bolivar remains unserved, even at maximum speeds.

Figure 2: Map visualization illustrating the difference between viewing average speeds in the Bolivar, Missouri area and maximum speeds documented.
When rating broadband availability in the Bolivar area at the Census block level and overlaying with ISP coverage claims at the H3 R8 level, you can see that many of the unserved and underserved areas have been reported as served to the FCC by ISPs (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Carrier overstatement small scale in Bolivar, Missouri. RCG speed map with FCC H3 R8 hexagon overlay.
Zooming out to examine the entirety of Missouri (Figure 4), the pattern of ISP overstatement becomes quite clear. According to the FCC maps, most of the state is served, whereas the analysis conducted by RCG shows that significant areas remain in need of broadband investment. As with Ohio, the scope of the overstatement in Missouri presents an unreasonable burden on the public to challenge.

Figure 4: Missouri reality vs. ISP Reports, March 2023.
Showing Progress: Change of State Analysis
Change-of-state analysis taps progressive releases of Ookla records to identify areas where broadband speeds have set new highs. This approach works not only for grant funded projects but also private investments. The area surrounding Byesville, Ohio (Figure 5) reveals a significant uptick in test volume, test locations, and speeds from 2020 to 2022. Side-by-side comparison shows a large number of “green” (served) speed test locations where there used to be only “red” (unserved) and “orange” (underserved) results. This change is a direct result of a Charter Communications Rural Digital Opportunity Fund deployment.

Figure 5: The unserved area around Byesville, Ohio before and after broadband deployment.
State Broadband Leaders can use these capabilities to document progress and identify lagging projects. Any service area will always exhibit a mix of speed test results. Even in an area like Byesville where fiber-to-the-home has been deployed, not all the location “dots” will turn green. However, the preponderance of evidence clearly shows that a funded ISP — in this case, Charter — has made good on its commitment to expanded broadband access. ISPs can help by conducting speed tests at the time of installation from the customer’s premises and by increasing minimum packages to 100/20 Mbps or higher.
There is no mystery to solve — we know how to identify areas lacking broadband services. For many rural Americans, even their telephone services have become unreliable, still dependent on the now-decrepit copper cables built in the 1940s through 1960s. We all depend on a healthy rural economy for our food, water and energy. Let’s make the commitment to build the infrastructure needed to bring these households into the internet age — starting by bringing reality and accountability to the availability maps.
Tom Reid is the president of Reid Consulting Group, a firm specializing in broadband. They work with clients to generate insights, create actionable plans, and identify funding sources to connect unserved and underserved areas. RCG’s engagements in eight states have delivered 6,000 miles of fiber construction with a total project value of $1.6 billion and has secured over $330 million in grant funds on behalf of clients. This piece is exclusive to Broadband Breakfast.
Broadband Breakfast accepts commentary from informed observers of the broadband scene. Please send pieces to commentary@breakfast.media. The views expressed in Expert Opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of Broadband Breakfast and Breakfast Media LLC.
Broadband Mapping & Data
Tribes Must Be Ready to Challenge State Broadband Maps: Tribal Ready
Tribes needs to be prepared to approach states on what coverage data is not included in state maps.

WASHINGTON, May 31, 2023 – Tribal governments should gather broadband coverage data for the state mapping process, said Joe Valandra, CEO of newly formed Native American-owned data company Tribal Ready at a Broadband Breakfast Live Online event Wednesday.
Historically, tribal data has been excluded or misinterpreted in broadband maps, he said. The $42.5 billion Broadband Equity Access and Deployment program will be allocated to subgrantees by state governments according to state broadband maps.
Tribal governments need to be prepared to approach the state with a data-driven argument about what coverage data is not included in the state map and what changes need to be made, said Valandra.
In turn, state broadband offices need to listen to tribes, added Megan Beresford, director of broadband programs at grant writing company Learn Design Apply.
The $3-billion Tribal Connectivity Program of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration received over $5 billion in grant requests from its application process last year. BEAD allocations, expected to be announced by the end of June, can play a part in addressing the undersubscription of funds to tribal programs, said E.J. John, senior research analyst at the American Indian Policy Institute.
Other federal programs can also support tribal connectivity, said Beresford. The Affordable Connectivity Program allows eligible low-income households to get a discount on broadband of up to $75 per month on tribal lands.
The NTIA announced in May nine new Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program grants of $500,000 each, bringing the program’s total amount disbursed to $1.77 billion.
Our Broadband Breakfast Live Online events take place on Wednesday at 12 Noon ET. Watch the event on Broadband Breakfast, or REGISTER HERE to join the conversation.
Panelists
- Lori Adams, Vice President of Broadband Policy & Funding Strategy, Nokia
- Joe Valandra, CEO and President, Tribal Ready
- Megan Beresford, Director of Broadband Programs, Learn Design Apply
- E.J. John, Senior Research Analyst, American Indian Policy Institute
- Drew Clark (moderator), Editor and Publisher, Broadband Breakfast
Panelist resources
As senior director of broadband policy and funding strategy, Lori Adams is a key member of the Nokia Government Affairs Americas Team. She is responsible for developing strategies and tools to enable increased company participation in state, federal, and international programs supporting infrastructure deployment by several of Nokia’s business organizations. Additionally, she focuses on external government relations and communications with stakeholders at all levels of government through direct engagement, filings, and participation in public forums.
Before leading Tribal Ready, Joe Valandra served as the executive director of the Native American Contractors Association (NACA). He also served as the managing director of VAdvisors, LLC, a specialty advisory firm in Washington, DC, and as the chief of staff for the National Indian Gaming Commission (NIGC), a federal regulatory agency with Indian gaming oversight responsibilities. Joe has served in senior executive roles in private and public sectors, including as a board member of numerous companies in multiple industries.
Megan Beresford is the director of broadband programs at Learn Design Apply Inc (LDA). She joined the company mid-pandemic as the digital divide became glaringly evident. Since then, she and her team have helped states, public entities, tribes, and private internet service providers secure over $300 million in broadband infrastructure and digital equity funding.
E.J. John is the senior research analyst at the American Indian Policy Institute at Arizona State University. He is a member of the Navajo Nation who uses his experience working in Tribal government and policy research to promote digital equity for Tribal communities.
Drew Clark (moderator) is CEO of Breakfast Media LLC. He has led the Broadband Breakfast community since 2008. An early proponent of better broadband, better lives, he initially founded the Broadband Census crowdsourcing campaign for broadband data. As Editor and Publisher, Clark presides over the leading media company advocating for higher-capacity internet everywhere through topical, timely and intelligent coverage. Clark also served as head of the Partnership for a Connected Illinois, a state broadband initiative.
Painting by Paul Cézanne used with permission
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