Broadband Deployment Accuracy and Technological Availability (DATA) Act

Tiny Gerlach, NV, looks like the ideal place to receive some of the $42.5 billion in Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) funding targeted to provide internet access to underserved areas. There’s just one catch: The town of 161, gateway to the state’s Black Rock Desert, already has broadband access, according to a government map showing that T-Mobile US Inc. provides service there.

Ryan Grewell, who runs a small wireless Internet service provider called Smart Way Communications in Ohio, filed challenges to the Federal Communications Commission's new broadband map after his customers noticed that the FCC map falsely reported fiber Internet service was available at their homes. The FCC data was provided by Jefferson County Cable. In a reply to Grewell's challenges,  Jefferson County Cable Executive Bob Loveridge wrote, "You challenged that we do not have service at your residence and indeed we don't today.

An earlier model estimated how far the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) funding might go, using estimates of the unserved and underserved from the old Form 477 data. The prediction was that with an optimal allocation between states, there would be almost enough money to reach all the unserved and underserved. Well, we’re getting closer to real and final data, and an update is in: $41.4 billion at an average national cost of $6,214 per location should reach 6.7 million locations.

The Federal Communications Commission is encouraging state and local governments and broadband providers to file bulk challenges to the commission’s broadband serviceable location database by March 15, 2023.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has a major hand in broadband matters. The agency's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) is responsible for overseeing a number of rural broadband funding programs, including the well-known multi-billion-dollar ReConnect loan and grant initiative. Andrew Berke has only recently taken the reigns as RUS Administrator, having been appointed by President Biden in October 2022.

The Federal Communications Commission's Broadband Data Task Force (Task Force) announces recommended best practices for submitting bulk challenges to the most recent version of the Broadband Serviceable Location Fabric (Fabric) data.

We write with great appreciation of your efforts to implement the historic provisions of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to make high-speed internet accessible and affordable for all Americans.

AT&T expects to see Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) funding flow from the federal government to the states and expects the “more aggressive” states to award some of that funding to broadband projects before the end of 2023, said AT&T CEO John Stankey. Citing the 80/20 rule, Stankey said, “The bigger states that are going to have the bulk of the funding are pretty zoned in on this and are moving pretty aggressively to get the process underway." Smaller states, he said, may “take a little bit longer to get their act together” and may be waiting to see what the more agg

Engineering firm Dewberry Alaska—in collaboration with mapping company Ecopia AI, Rasmuson Foundation, and the State of Alaska—is working on a broadband map based on what Ecopia AI is calling “an accurate, up-to-date and complete map of every building, in both rural and urban areas, in the state.” Ecopia AI’s specialty is applying artificial intelligence (AI) to satellite imagery to identify buildings.

The Federal Communications Commission released a file that contains the number of “units” (usually housing units) in the  Broadband Serviceable Location Fabric (Fabric). There are 158 million “units” in the Fabric and 140 million housing units in the 2020 Census. In the least dense 2,143 counties, there are 30 million “units” in the Fabric and 24.5 million Census housing units. As counties get more rural, the Fabric increasingly has more locations than the Census. In the least dense counties, the Fabric routinely has 40% more locations than the Census.