Senators: Gosh, Maybe We Should Accurately Map Broadband Before Deploying $50 Billion In Telecom Subsidies? - April 5, 2023 at 08:29AM

We’ve noted for years how, despite a lot of political lip service to “bridging the digital divide,” the U.S. still doesn’t truly know where broadband is or isn’t available. Despite spending $400 billion and counting, the FCC has done an abysmal job accurately mapping broadband speeds and availability, or holding monopolies responsible for false coverage claims (or much of anything else).

That means we’ve already spent billions upon billions of dollars in telecom subsidies without truly understanding whether it’s fixing the problem. And courtesy of the COVID relief and infrastructure bills, we’re about to spend another $50 billion to fix a problem we’ve yet to competently measure.

Tasked by Congress, the FCC recently introduced new maps they say provide a more granular, crowdsourced look at broadband access. But critics say the maps remain an inaccurate mess (you can test it yourself here). While the new maps thankfully include the ability to challenge inaccurate data, municipalities and state leaders tell me the entire process is a bit of a hot mess that tends to (surprise) prioritize the interests of the country’s biggest providers.

Enter U.S. Senators Jacky Rosen and John Thune, who last week introduced new legislation that would pause subsidizing broadband deployments until the FCC has broadband mapping sorted out:

The FCC’s failure to fix their deeply flawed broadband map and the Department of Commerce’s refusal to wait to allocate broadband funding until the map is fixed puts hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for high-speed internet in Nevada at risk,” said Senator Rosen. “My bipartisan bill would ensure the FCC can fix this map before money goes out the door, so that all states receive their fair share of federal dollars to provide communities desperately needed access to high-speed internet.”

Both the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) included more than $60 billion in broadband subsidies. Without accurate maps, a lot of that money could be wasted on duplicative projects, or doled out to regional monopolies lying about their coverage to ensure they gobble up subsidies they don’t actually deserve.

The NTIA says it won’t begin allocating the $42.5 billion in IIJA funding until June 30, giving the government a few extra months to get this right. Having covered this sector for twenty years, I’m highly doubtful that they do. While this historic funding will lead to many great investments, the stage is set for what could be some potentially gobsmacking fraud due to unreliable data.

Unfortunately, in a Congress whose top legislative priorities involve hyperventilating about TikTok, it seems unlikely that the bill makes it over the finish line. Though it’s nice to see Senators notice that the problem exists, given DC’s myopic focus on “Big Tech” policy to the exclusion of all other internet policy considerations (like, say, having a functional telecom and media regulator).