Congress suddenly cares about broadband maps

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and its contract partner CostQuest have been agonizing over the U.S. broadband map for more than five years. They really doubled-down on the effort to create an accurate nationwide map when the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program started. Now, coming in at the 9th inning, the U.S. Senate has passed a bill—SB 2585 MAP for Broadband Funding Act—that would require the FCC to reevaluate its national broadband map. The bill would have the FCC determine if the scope of data used for the map should be expanded, whether third-party mapping data should be incorporated, and how frequently the map should be updated, among other things. Now that states are finally receiving BEAD funds and awarding them to operators, Congress is worried the map isn’t up to snuff, and taxpayer dollars will be wasted.