The allocation of billions of dollars of broadband infrastructure money is contingent on the big update to the broadband map of the Federal Communications Commission, which has set Jan. 13, 2023, as the deadline for challenges to a preliminary version released on Nov. 18, 2022. That deadline is intended to set a timeline for the version of the map — after challenges — that will guide the NTIA in divvying out to the states by this June 30 the $42.5 billion from the BEAD Program.
As cities raise issues with the current difficulty of putting together adequate resources to accurately challenge the map in time for a January deadline that even the NTIA head said made him feel “uncomfortable,” and as states grapple with conflicts between their mapping contractor and the FCC’s, Broadband Breakfast has laid out the things to know about the challenge process and a summary of how we got here in the exclusive Broadband Breakfast Club Report for January 2023.
