Now that the first version of the Federal Communications Commission’s new broadband map is out, providers across the country are likely scrambling to calculate how much money each state is set to get from the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program. If estimates put out by industry group ACA Connects are to be believed, California, Texas and Florida are set to get the most support from the program, while Massachusetts, Delaware and Rhode Island will reap the least. Cartesian figures offer a baseline for understanding where funding is likely to be concentrated. And ACA Connects plans to update its estimates using the new FCC maps, but that effort could take several more weeks given the maps were only just unveiled.

There are two ways to judge the Federal Communications Commission's new broadband maps—the mapping fabric and the broadband coverage story. The State of Vermont has already sent a challenge letter to the FCC that says that 11% of the locations in the Fabric don’t match Vermont’s own data. Even worse, Vermont says that 22% of locations it knows about are missing from the FCC map. Vermont also looked at the broadband coverage claims by ISPs. According to the new maps, over 95% of Vermont homes have access broadband to broadband of at least 100/20 Mbps. Vermont created its own broadband maps, which show that only 71% of homes in the state could receive broadband at 100 Mbps or faster at the end of 2021. In looking at the data, the difference seems to come from claims on the new FCC maps that satellite and fixed wireless broadband can reach huge numbers of folks—something that is not true in hilly and wooded Vermont. There also are ISPs that have claimed speeds that are faster than what Vermont believes is being delivered.

In a November 21 letter signed by Commerce Secretary Raimondo and Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Arati Prabhakar, Reps Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) and Frank Lucas (R-OK) warn the Federal Communications Commission about disruptions to climate data collection in the 1675-1680 MHz band due to spectrum use by wireless providers. "We write to urge you and the Commission to stop consideration of the proposal for sharing the 1675-1680 MHz band for commercial wireless carriers operating in the downlink mode," the lawmakers wrote. "The 1675-1680 MHz spectrum band is used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for the transmission of real-time satellite meteorological and environmental data, including critical information about severe weather and flooding, from NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) to antennae on the ground. The 1675-1680 MHz spectrum band sits within the 1670-1710 MHz band allocated globally for meteorological satellite services; NOAA has already made half of this allocation available for sharing with commercial wireless broadband services."

For stock investors, a new risk is orbiting the satellite market: By trying to preserve competition, antitrust regulators could end up placing even more power in the hands of a privately-owned behemoth—Elon Musk‘s Starlink. California’s Viasat announced a $7.3 billion takeover of British satellite telecommunications company Inmarsat in late 2021, making it a centerpiece in the long-awaited consolidation of the satellite market. Yet, despite the deal being cleared by the U.K. government for national-security purposes, Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority recently placed it under intense “Phase 2” scrutiny, on the grounds that it would reduce the number of players in the high-growth in-flight Wi-Fi market. Shooting down the deal could achieve the exact opposite of what the regulators hope. The Starlink network built by Elon Musk’s SpaceX is on a path to dominance, with more than 3,000 satellites already in orbit and aspirations to take that number above 40,000. Amazon's subsidiary Kuiper Systems wants to build a further 3,000, and there are smaller LEO players such as Britain’s OneWeb, as well as sovereign competition from China and Russia. The LEO threat is forcing incumbents to burn money in pursuit of economies of scale before it is too late.