Broadband Deployment Accuracy and Technological Availability (DATA) Act

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) provided new guidance to Eligible Entities (States, Territories, and the District of Columbia) regarding the next step in Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program implementation.

Federal broadband funding is doing more than expand service. It is also changing the competitive landscape in the communities receiving it. Nearly 43% of federally funded served locations in non-BEAD areas now have access to more than one broadband provider. That is meaningful progress for rural communities that have historically had limited choice, creating the potential for better pricing, stronger service and more bundled offers for consumers. A funded area is no longer just a future build opportunity. It may already be, or soon become, a contested market.

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.

We analyzed the Federal Communications Commission's latest Serviceable Location Fabric (v9) and the latest Broadband Data Collection (BDC) data release (2025-12-31, which uses Fabric v8) to see how many locations awarded  Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program funds for satellite service are either (1) no longer included in the Fabric as broadband-serviceable locations or (2) are already “served.” About 35 percent of locations awarded BEAD funds for satellite service are likely no longer in need (42% if unlicensed fixed wireless is included).

If you fail to properly diagnose the problem, you will fail in your abilities to solve the problem. The same is true for the digital divide, which continues to impact millions of unserved and underserved communities across the nation. The Federal Communications Commission is once again invoking the term ‘streamlining’ as justification for creating a permission structure that allows providers to evade accountability while consumers experience the consequences of distorted broadband maps.

For more than a decade, federal programs have relied on Federal Communications Commission (FCC) data to answer a deceptively simple question: who has broadband internet access and who does not? The answer determines where billions of dollars in federal infrastructure funding go. Getting it right matters enormously. Getting it wrong means money fails to reach places that need it most.

The Federal Communications Commission's Broadband Data Task Force (Task Force) and the Office of Economics and Analytics (OEA) launched the coverage restoration process, beginning on Thursday, May 7, 2026. The specifications for the data required by service providers seeking to restore coverage in the Broadband Data Collection (BDC) are available at: https://us-fcc.box.com/v/bdc-coveragerestoration-spec.

The Federal Communications Commission’s Section 706 Reports are a useful source for information on broadband deployment, even if largely used by Democratic administrations to justify regulation. Armed now with the new broadband fabric data, which attempt to measure broadband availability down to the location level, the FCC’s staff is faced with some new complexities. Summary statistics provided in the Report require linking the finely-tuned broadband data to population statistics.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has approved Oregon's Final Proposal for the federal Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program, authorizing the state to move forward implementing the largest broadband infrastructure investment in Oregon's history. Through this approval, Oregon will invest $689 million to expand affordable, high-speed, and reliable internet service across the state.

Today's big news is that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) approved 18 Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program Final Proposals. As a reminder, we've been tracking what those proposals looked like when they were submitted to the NTIA. In the coming days, we'll be examining the final final (Is that what we should call them?) BEAD plans to see what changes were made during the approval process.