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FCC Releases National Broadband Map Amid Controversy

To correct for inevitable errors, the FCC is soliciting challenges to the map’s provider-submitted data.

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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

Robocalls, Rip and Replace, Pole Attachments: More Notes From the FCC Oversight Hearing

Commissioners and House lawmakers discussed key topics at a contentious hearing.

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Screenshot of commissioners at the hearing Thursday.

WASHINGTON, December 1, 2023 – All five Federal Communications Commissioners took part in a lengthy and at times contentious House oversight hearing on Thursday.

Commissioners urged Congress to restore the FCC’s authority to action spectrum, which expired in March and left the nation’s airwaves in limbo, and to fund the Affordable Connectivity Program, the low-income internet subsidy set to dry up in April of next year. 

GOP lawmakers FCC Republicans also took the chance to slam efforts by the commission’s Democratic majority.

The discussion touched on other issues including robocall prevention, rip and replace funding, and pole attachments.

Robocalls

The commission has been taking action on preventing robocalls this year, kicking off an inquiry into using artificial intelligence to detect fraud, blocking call traffic from 20 providers for lax enforcement policies and issuing hundreds of millions in fines. In August the commission also expanded the STIR/SHAKEN regime – a set of measures to confirm caller identities – to all providers who handle call traffic.

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel asked multiple times for three Congressional actions she said would help the commission crack down on scam calls: a new definition for “autodialer,” the ability to collect fines, and access to Bank Secrecy Act information.

The Supreme Court limited the definition of autodialers in 2021 to devices that store or produce phone numbers with random or sequential number generators. That leaves the scope of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which guides the FCC’s authority, “stuck in the nineties,” according to Rosenworcel.

“A lot of scam artists are using technologies no longer covered” by the act, she said. “We can’t go after them.”

On collecting robocall fines, that authority currently rests with the Department of Justice, and Rosenworcel is not the first to tell Congress the agency’s enforcement has been lax. Industry groups at an October Senate hearing cited slow DOJ action as a major reason FCC fines on the issue often go uncollected.

The Bank Secrecy Act requires financial institutions to keep records on certain transactions to help law enforcement agencies track money laundering and other criminal activity. The FCC cannot access information governed by the act, which Rosenworcel said would help the commission go after repeat scammers.

“These scam artists set up one company, we shut them down, they go and set another one up,” she said.

Rip and replace

Commissioners urged Congress to fund the rip and replace program. Congress allocated $1.9 billion to reimburse broadband companies for replacing network equipment from Chinese companies deemed to be national security threats, mainly Huawei and ZTE.

The FCC was tasked with overseeing the program and found in 2022 that another $3 billion would be needed to get the work done. The Biden administration joined a chorus of lawmakers and broadband companies in calling for Congress to fill the gap, but legislation on the issue has yet to be passed.

“We’re providing 40 cents on the dollar to a lot of small and rural carriers,” said Rosenworcel. “They need more funds to get the job done.”

The commission has been granting extensions to providers unable to get the work done on time. In addition to supply chain issues, some small providers cite a lack of funding as the reason they’re unable to replace insecure equipment.

Pole attachments

Commissioners expressed a willingness to shift some of the burden of utility pole replacements off of broadband providers as they attach new equipment.

“If a pole is getting replaced,” Commissioner Brendan Carr said, “there’s probably a role for the FCC to say that the pole owner should bear somewhere north of the cost of $0.”

The commission has authority in 26 states over most pole attachment deals between utility pole owners and telecommunications companies looking to expand their networks. The issue of who pays for poles that need to be replaced to accommodate more communications equipment is contentious, with telecoms arguing utilities force them to pay for replacing already junk poles. 

After spending years sifting through thousands of comments, commissioners have apparently been persuaded. Rules up for a vote at the commission’s December meeting would limit the scenarios in which utilities could pass full replacement costs on to attachers.

Broadband funding map

Rosenworcel repeatedly asked lawmakers to work with the commission on ensuring its broadband funding map is kept up to date.

The FCC launched its funding map in May to keep track of the myriad federal broadband subsidy efforts and avoid funding the same areas multiple times. The Department of Agriculture, the FCC, and the Treasury Department each oversee separate broadband funding programs, in addition to the Commerce Department’s upcoming $42.5 billion broadband expansion effort.

The commission has signed memoranda of understanding with those agencies on providing data for the funding map, but Rosenworcel asked the subcommittee for help ensuring the agencies follow through and respond to FCC requests for their funding data. 

“If you could help us make sure those other agencies respond to us with data, you’ll see where there are problems, duplication, areas we haven’t reached,” she said.

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Connect20 Summit: Data-Driven Approach Needed for Digital Navigation

The NTIA’s Internet Use Survey doesn’t delve deeply enough into why people choose not to adopt broadband.

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WASHINGTON, November 20, 2023 – Better data about broadband adoption is necessary to closing the digital divide in the U.S., a broadband expert said during a panel at the Connect20 Summit here.

Speaking on a panel about “The Power of Navigation Services,” the expert, Jessica Dine of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, said states lack comprehensive data on why some residents remain offline. This information is essential for digital navigator programs to succeed, she said.

She highlighted the need for standardized national metrics on digital literacy and inclusion, and said that federal surveys – including the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey – provide insights on barriers to technology adoption. But more granular data is required.

She also said that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s Internet Use Survey doesn’t delve deeply enough into why people choose not to adopt the internet. For instance, understanding the nuances behind the ‘not interested’ response category could unveil targeted intervention strategies.

In particular, Dine praised Louisiana and Delaware for surveying communities on their connectivity needs, including overlaying socio-economic indicators with broadband deployment data. But she said more work is required to quantify the precise challenges different populations face.

Other panelists at the session, including Michelle Thornton of the State University of New York at Oswego, emphasized the importance of tracking on-the-ground efforts by navigators themselves.

Bringing in her experience from the field of healthcare navigation, Thornton underscored the value of tracking navigator activities and outcomes. She suggested a collaborative model where state-level data collection is supplemented by detailed, community-level insights from digital navigators.

The panel was part of the Connect20 Summit held in Washington and organized by Network On, the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, and Broadband Breakfast.

The session was moderated by Comcast’s Kate Allison, executive director of research and digital equity at Comcast.

To stay involved with the Digital Navigator movement, sign up at the Connect20 Summit.

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Broadband Mapping & Data

House Subcommittee Witnesses Disagree on AI for Broadband Maps

The Communications and Technology Subcommittee held a hearing Tuesday on using AI to enhance communication networks.

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Screenshot of Nicole Turner Lee, director of the Brookings Institution's Center for Technology Innovation, at the hearing Tuesday.

WASHINGTON, November 14, 2023 – Experts disagreed on the potential for artificial intelligence to aid broadband mapping efforts at a House hearing on Tuesday.

Courtney Lang, a vice president at tech industry trade group ITI, said AI could be used to improve the quality of current broadband maps.

A machine learning model could do that by using past data to identify buildings that are likely to be accurately marked as having adequate broadband, according to Lang.

“It’s a really interesting use case,” she said.

Broadband mapping is a difficult task. The Federal Communications Commission’s broadband map is on its third version, undergoing revisions as consumers submit challenges to provider-reported broadband coverage data. The Biden administration’s $42.5 billion broadband expansion program requires states to administer a similar ground-truthing process before allocating any of that cash.

But Nicol Turner Lee, director of the Brookings Institution’s Center for Technology Innovation, urged caution.

“We have to be careful that we might not have enough data,” she said.

In rural parts of the country, data can be sparse and low-quality. Both factors would make machine learning ill-suited to the task of flagging potential inaccuracies, according to Lee.

She urged lawmakers to exercise restraint when using AI for “critical government functions,” like the broadband maps used to determine where federal grant money will go.

The witnesses spoke at a House Communications and Technology Subcommittee hearing on using AI to enhance American communication networks.

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