Before the Senate paused for recess, it passed a bill introduced by Senator Deb Fisher of Nebraska that would require the FCC to undertake a major review of its broadband mapping system. The bill is labeled the Modernization, Accountability, and Planning (MAP) for Broadband Funding Act.

It’s not hard to understand why there are folks who lobbied Congress to ask the FCC to pay more attention to the maps. Anybody who has ever used the current BDC broadband mapping can describe problems and errors in the map. However, I can’t be the only one who thinks that making this request to the FCC now, as States are in the process of awarding BEAD grants to ISPs, is too little, too late. I’m highly skeptical that the maps can ever be made anywhere close to perfect.

There are two separate parts of the broadband mapping system that work together to create the maps – the fabric, which is created by Cost Quest, which is supposed to show the location of every location that might be a broadband customer. The second big component is broadband coverage data as reported by ISPs, which shows the locations they can serve and the broadband speeds they can provide.

I have a lot of sympathy for Cost Quest for ever getting an accurate fabric. If nothing else, this is a dynamic country with houses constantly being built, torn down, burned out, or abandoned. Cost Quest is forced to rely on local housing data that is often inaccurate – counties don’t really care if a property is abandoned or unused as long as somebody pays the taxes on the property. Cost Quest also seems to use satellite data to spot locations. But satellite data misses buildings (and entire roads) that are under heavy tree cover. And satellite can’t tell the difference between a house, a shed, or a burned-out abandoned building.

About the only thing that could improve the fabric is local feedback on inaccuracies. There is zero motivation for local governments to spend time and money on this if they think their areas already have good broadband or are going to be covered by broadband grants. Many local governments are fed up with the FCC map challenge after they spend big efforts trying to fix the maps during the BEAD map challenges, only to see huge numbers of their suggested changes rejected. I really can’t think of any constituency that is ever going to be motivated to try to fix the fabric in the future. It’s going to be laughable if the FCC makes map challenges easier now that nobody is likely to bother with the process.

The part of the map with the biggest problems is completely due to FCC rules. ISPs are supposed to define where they can provide service within ten days of a customer request. Many ISPs are conscientious about this while others either file ridiculously exaggerated coverage areas, or else don’t bother to update changes in their networks. But the biggest area of mapping problems comes from ISPs being able to declare marketing speed capabilities instead of something close to what they can actually deliver. Even somebody who has never looked at a broadband map can imagine ways that ISPs can abuse this rule. Some ISPs exaggerate speeds and consider the FCC maps to be a cheap source of advertisement. Others claim 100/20 Mbps or faster to stop federal and state grants being used to compete with them.

The most important change that is not in the legislation is giving the public access to the data underlying the broadband maps. It’s outrageous that there are expensive licenses required to see data that belongs to the American people. If the FCC mapping data was open and free, then I can imagine a lot of folks who would work to fix the map in their neighborhood out of altruism.

I am worried that any changes to the map are going to rebound and hurt ISPs that have already won BEAD awards. NTIA has shown an eagerness to remove locations from the map as a way to reduce the amount of BEAD grant funding, while not being equally open to adding locations to grants that were missed by the FCC maps. The only saving grace is that nothing will happen quickly. This may not be passed in the House, and if it is, the House could pass a different version that would require reconciliation. Even if enacted, this would instruct the FCC to take a fresh look at the maps, and that process could take several years. As I said at the start of the blog, this is too little too late. This would have been a wonderful bill in 2021, and now it just seems like a way for Congress to say it is doing something about broadband without actually doing anything.