A new interactive map showing the availability of high-speed Internet in the United States will drive billions of dollars in grants for expansion. It is full of errors, but unlike previous versions, you can now dispute what is shown for your address and maybe fix it.
And you better do it soon because the Federal Communications Commission has set a January 13 deadline for consumer challenges to the draft map that cost at least $44 million to produce.
Experts say the FCC’s new mapping system is a step in the right direction to deliver high-speed Internet, also known as broadband, to the millions of Americans who need it for school, work and everyday life. days. But getting accurate data has been difficult, even with address-by-address input from service providers, because they either didn’t always provide the information regulators required or were inaccurate.
“The long-term success of this effort will depend on consumer and stakeholder engagement,” FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement.
Billions of broadband subsidies are at stake
Internet service providers, lobbyists and elected officials will be involved in the process because billions in broadband subsidies are at stake. Some states and municipalities will carry substantial weight, while others will not.
“I think it’s going to be a giant goat rodeo,” said Barry Orton, a telecommunications professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Based on its new map, the FCC now says more than 98 percent of Wisconsin has access to Internet speeds of 25 megabits per second download and 3 Mbps upload, an improvement over previous years, but inadequate for a larger household. family members online.
The FCC has overestimated broadband coverage for years, and many rural areas are still unserved or underserved, meaning they don’t have access to minimum Internet speeds of 100 megabits per second download and 20 Mbps upload, suitable for a family with multiple family members online.
The Wisconsin Public Service Commission says it has identified 7,000 locations not even on the new FCC map. New York State said it found 31,000 missing or underserved locations. Vermont said 22% of the places it knew of were missing.
Challenges presented by Wisconsin, other states
Wisconsin, New York and Vermont have filed complaints with the FCC and encouraged consumers and businesses to check the map’s accuracy as well.
The data will help determine states’ share of the $42 billion in federal grants for Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD). “This is really important and we are asking people for their help,” said Rebecca Cameron Valcq, president of the Wisconsin PSC.
“We know the map has errors, and we also know we have to get it right,” Valcq said.
The map shows many locations that have access to multiple ISPs, when in reality this is not the case. It also overstates the speeds available in rural areas and indicates that Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite service is an option, when in fact, Starlink isn’t necessarily available.
The FCC says the interactive map will improve with input from consumers.
“The FCC is somewhere between a rock and a hard place. They had to rely on self-report from service providers who tended to be optimistic about what they could offer and where they could get it,” said Andrew Cohill, president and CEO of Design Nine, a broadband network consultancy which is did work in central Wisconsin.
“We recommend doing a field survey and gathering hard data from customers,” Cohill said.
The new map is better than the previous “worthless” version.
Even with its flaws, most agree that the new mapping system is much better than the one it replaced.
“I’d say it’s five to ten times more accurate. The previous one was absolutely useless” Orton said.
For years, the FCC has been doling out billions in grants for broadband expansion without knowing where the service was actually missing. If even one home or business had access to a census block, sometimes covering hundreds of square miles, the entire area was considered served.
Many places were shown as having broadband when, in fact, they weren’t.
Other: FCC Broadband Grants WisconsinElectricity transformed rural America nearly a century ago. Now, millions of people on farms and small towns are in desperate need of broadband.
“That means we lack an honest picture in the United States of the communities that are consigned to the wrong side of the digital divide,” Rosenworcel, then the FCC commissioner, said in a June 2020 dissent note about the agency’s rush to allocate $1 Billion in Grants Based on an Imperfect Map.
That December, Congress gave the FCC millions of dollars to create a better mapping system.
The result was the recently released map, still containing errors generated by the service providers and the data collection system, but largely fixable.
“This is a beginning, not an end… this work is far from finished,” said Rosenworcel.
The new map is probably about 80 percent accurate, said Andrew Petersen, vice president of corporate affairs at TDS Telecom, a Madison-based Internet service provider that says it is spending about $500 million on broadband expansion. in Wisconsin and hired 26 computer interns to verify its map data.
“The FCC map needs to become the gold standard,” Petersen said.
Challenging the map is easy enough
I’m looking for your address and checking the information shown for available broadband services and speeds takes just a minute.
After entering an address into a text box, the content you’re looking for appears and is sortable in a variety of ways such as the types of service available and speeds.
If you believe the information is incorrect, you can click an “availability challenge” and submit your corrections to the FCC. You can also file a “location dispute” if that information is incorrect.
Michael Pitsch, of Manitowoc County, said it was easy to dispute the findings for his home.
More: FCC Consumer Broadband ChallengeThe FCC has resources to help consumers challenge its new broadband map
“It’s not like going to the FCC and filing a complaint, which is a much more convoluted process,” he said.
Service providers have the opportunity to contest challenges and present their challenges to the information of the competitors on the map.
In theory, the system should improve over time and result in better use of taxpayer dollars spent on broadband expansion.
“Politicians on both sides of the aisle were very emphatic that they didn’t want to see fraud, abuse and duplicate network funding,” Petersen said.
“I’d say that rests on the shoulders of the FCC, who I think will do a reasonable job… It’s by no means a perfect process, but I’d say we’re in the first inning of a nine-inning game,” he added.
We need more responsibility
Now that the map has been released, the FCC says it will be updated regularly. The January 13 challenge deadline is important for the distribution of $42 billion in BEAD grants.
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) said it plans to announce BEAD grant awards by June 30, “using the most current version of the FCC maps as a guide.”
Other: Wisconsin Broadband GrantsWisconsin will receive at least $100 million for broadband expansion under the massive federal infrastructure bill
Previous grant programs have revealed liability issues across the country.
In Wisconsin, for example, a report from the State Legislative Enforcement Office showed that broadband service providers received millions of dollars under two federal programs, but failed to document what they actually spent on their projects.
Other: Wisconsin Broadband Regulatory OfficeAudit Bureau says the state agency failed to audit broadband subsidy spending
The audit office said it has reviewed grants administered by the Wisconsin Public Service Commission under the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act and the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).
Nearly all of the 384 supporting documents the PSC reviewed for CARES Act reimbursements did not indicate how much the grant recipients had actually paid for the work, according to the audit office. Furthermore, the PSC did not document its efforts to verify that the grant recipients had built the broadband infrastructure for which they were being reimbursed.
PSC Commissioner Ellen Nowak has been critical of the way the agency has administered CARES Act money, saying there has been a rush to get it ‘out the door’ which has led to bad decisions.
She’s worried something similar could happen with hundreds of millions of dollars in other grants.
And while the FCC map will never be perfect, he said, it should be more than “close enough.”