IIJA provides NTIA opportunity to route around flawed "broadband map," use infrastructure-based standard for subsidization.

Extending the process to challenge the U.S. Federal Communications Commission’s data on the availability of broadband Internet access service proposed in recently introduced federal legislation won’t ultimately lead to complete and accurate data for the allocation of infrastructure subsidies to the states. The reason as Doug Dawson details in a blog post is the data is based on marketing claims of providers of where they provide service.

ISPs are pretty much free to claim whatever they want. While there has been a lot of work done to challenge the fabric and the location of possible customers – it’s a lot harder to challenge the coverage claims of specific ISPs. A true challenge would require many millions of individual challenges about the broadband that is available at each home.

While that’s consistent with the nation’s current market-based regulatory paradigm for advanced telecommunications, it can’t possibly be complete and accurate. Nor is it intended to be. The purpose of marketing is to create brand awareness and attract potential customers, not for planning the deployment of critical infrastructure.

Fortunately, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) provides a workaround to the fool’s errand of “broadband mapping” based on marketing claims. It does so with a flexible definition of “broadband” that would allow it to be defined in administrative versus statutory law. Section 60102(a)(2)(B) of the IIJA defines it by reference to 47 Code of Federal Regulations 8.1(b):

Broadband internet access service is a mass-market retail service by wire or radio that provides the capability to transmit data to and receive data from all or substantially all internet endpoints, including any capabilities that are incidental to and enable the operation of the communications service, but excluding dial-up internet access service. This term also encompasses any service that the Commission finds to be providing a functional equivalent of the service described in the previous sentence or that is used to evade the protections set forth in this part.

or any successor regulation. (Emphasis added)

Although the context clearly refers to the FCC, there is nothing in the statutory language that limits the promulgation of a successor regulation to the FCC. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), which has prioritized fiber to the premises (FTTP) delivery infrastructure for subsidization in its Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program, could promulgate its own regulation citing this authority in the IIJA. 

Such a rulemaking could use a fiber infrastructure-based subsidization eligibility standard, consistent with the IIJA’s intent to modernize and expand critical infrastructure in the 21st century. That could include a different challenge process based on the rebuttable presumption that FTTP doesn’t exist -- very likely in what the IIJA identifies as subsidy eligible areas with poor existing service. Those that would challenge FTTP subsidies would be required to show that it does and passes all addresses in their service areas with an exception for extremely remote locations. 

As Dawson writes, "Grant funding could have been done in other ways that didn’t rely on the maps. I don’t think it’s going to make much difference if we delay six months, a year, or four years – the maps are going to remain consistently inconsistent." 

U.S. telecom infrastructure crisis natural outcome of nation’s failure to address foundational questions

America’s advanced telecom policy failure stems from the failure to address two fundamental questions:

1/ How much would it accurately cost to bring fiber to most every American doorstep?

2/ What are the optimal roles of the public and private sectors in financing, building and operating this critical infrastructure -- and constructing it in the most expeditious manner given only about one third of homes have fiber connections?

The failure to honestly ask and answer these questions and make clear policy choices based on the answers has led to the default market-based, incremental, ad hoc and highly granular efforts dating to the mid-1990s. That has led to using throughput as a metric of progress vs. replacing legacy metallic telephone and cable delivery infrastructure with fiber to the premise (FTTP) and what scholars like Christopher Ali describe as “The Politics of Good Enough” and barely adequate infrastructure prone to near term obsolescence. While Ali frames his argument in binary terms of urban vs. rural infrastructure similar to the deployment of electric power distribution infrastructure in the early 20th century, it extends to other geographic settlement areas due to highly granular, incremental market driven deployment based on household density and demographics and other factors.

The failure to address these overarching questions and make solid policy decisions has in its place produced sloganeering like “Internet for All” -- meaningless and merely aspirational without a realistic plan to get the nation there -- and getting lost in the weeds.

A glaring example is “broadband mapping” and the controversy surrounding the FCC’s related efforts that will determine the allocation of advanced telecommunications infrastructure subsidies appropriated in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021. “Broadband mapping” encapsulates the previously mentioned flawed policy of defining progress based on throughput vs. infrastructure modernization. Even more fundamentally, the failure to determine the optimal roles of the public and private sectors, with mapping as protectionist response by investor-owned providers seeking to protect their interests in the meantime.

Infrastructure Bill "broadband mapping" timeline: The fighting begins this fall

Washington, March 31, 2022 – The chair of the Federal Communications Commission said Thursday that the improved broadband maps needed to adequately disburse billions in federal infrastructure dollars will come this fall. During a House Energy and Commerce Committee Oversight hearing Thursday, Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said, “Absolutely, yes. We will have [complete] maps in the fall.”

Completed Maps Will ‘Absolutely’ Be Available This Fall, FCC’s Rosenworcel Says

That will start the clock on multiple rounds of disputes over the accuracy of the maps as well as proposed advanced telecom infrastructure projects whose eligibility for 75 percent planning and construction grant funding under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 (IIJA)  is linked to the maps. The maps will determine projects ineligible for funding because less than 80 percent of addresses are deemed under IIJA provisions as "unserved:" areas where no incumbent providers offer "broadband" service of at least 100 Mbps down and 20 Mbps up. 

Here's the timeline of how these battles will likely play out, assuming the maps are issued as projected by the fall:

Fall 2022: FCC releases maps for state input as to their accuracy.

Fall 2022-Spring/Summer 2023: States dispute maps accuracy claiming they overstate “served” areas as with prior FCC "broadband maps."

Fall 2023:  After FCC deems new maps accurate, states and incumbents/WISPs continue to disagree over their accuracy.

Late 2023-Early 2024: Incumbents/ WISPs file challenges of proposed projects with states, contending they cover “served” areas.

Summer/fall 2024: Incumbents/WISPs appeal state determinations to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) as allowed by the IIJA.

Early 2025: States and incumbents/WISPs appeal NTIA determinations to the courts.

Broadband mapping provision of House-passed infrastructure measure poses risk to timely disbursement of state funding

The Largest U.S. Investment in Broadband Deployment Ever | Benton Institute for Broadband & Society: Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program (And the Need for Better Broadband Maps) The U.S. Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has six months to create the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program to support projects to construct and deploy broadband networks. Congress has allocated $42.45 billion for the program which will prioritize expansion of broadband in rural areas and states that rank below other states on broadband access and deployment. A key element in the implementation of the program is broadband mapping taking place at the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC is in the process of updating its current broadband maps with more detailed and precise information on the availability of fixed and mobile broadband services.

The Broadband Deployment Accuracy and Technological Availability (DATA) Act, signed into law in March 2020, requires the FCC to change the way broadband data is collected, verified, and reported. Specifically, the FCC must collect and disseminate granular broadband service availability data (broadband maps) from wired, fixed-wireless, satellite, and mobile broadband providers. To do this, the FCC is required to establish the Broadband Serviceable Location Fabric (a dataset of geocoded information for all broadband service locations, atop which broadband maps are overlaid) as the vehicle for reporting broadband service availability data. Additionally, the FCC must put forth specified requirements for service availability data collected from broadband providers, and it must create a challenge process to enable the submission of independent data challenging the accuracy of FCC broadband maps.

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This provision of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that passed the U.S. House of Representatives late this week and expected to be quickly signed into law is the largest risk factor to the measure's timely implementation. 

Given the nation's fraught history of broadband mapping, that key provision of the funding eligibility formula and the development of procedures to challenge their accuracy is likely to set off time consuming controversy between investor owned providers, consumer interest and state and federal regulators, bogging down federal disbursements for months and possibly years. The billions of dollars at stake provide impetus for these groups to file challenges and raise questions over the accuracy of the maps, neighborhood by neighborhood.

Eligibility for up to 75 percent grant funding for advanced telecom infrastructure builds is prioritized to “unserved areas,” defined as those where at least 80 percent of premises are unserved – those not having any providers offering service with throughput of at least 25 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up. That's open to gaming by fixed wireless providers who could conceivably claim offers of service meeting or exceeding the throughput minimum but at exorbitant rates.

“Underserved” areas – defined those lacking access to “reliable broadband service” with no providers offering service with throughput of at least 100 Mbps down and 20 Mbps up are secondarily eligible. For both categories, funding eligibility is limited to areas where least 80 percent of premises are unserved or underserved. Neighborhoods failing to meet the 80 percent threshold would be out of luck and continue to potentially suffer redlining by incumbent providers serving only select parts of them.

Public option open access fiber holds promise of ending unproductive "broadband mapping"

First and foremost, the FCC, Congress, local government, community groups, and existing service providers need to work together to create accurate broadband maps. Without an understanding of where broadband infrastructure actually exists, we won’t know which communities lack access to the Internet and which are served.

Risks and Rewards of the U.S. Broadband Funding Boom | Internet Society

While on the surface, this appears to be a rational starting point, in reality it's retrogressive and not a step forward. "Broadband mapping" originates from the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that gave the U.S. Federal Commission authority to define advanced telecommunications based on throughput. The FCC determines what constitutes "broadband" level throughput. Providers are required to report annually to the FCC where they are selling it. Efforts to map this data have resulted in decades of unproductive gaming and wasteful controversy among regulators, policymakers, service providers and public interest advocates over the accuracy and utility of the reports.

The Biden administration's proposed American Jobs Plan properly regards advanced telecommunications as critical infrastructure rather than "broadband" as a service. It defines a level of throughput that makes it a de facto fiber to the home infrastructure standard. It would also create a public option by prioritizing networks owned by public sector and nonprofit entities such as consumer cooperatives.

Instead of mapping "broadband speed," what policymakers should do first is identify existing public sector and nonprofit entities that currently operate fiber networks. The American Jobs Plan and other potential sources of federal funding should be directed to them to expand and strengthen their networks. Where these networks are absent, funding should be allocated to enable regional public sector and nonprofit operators to design and build open access fiber as a much needed public option to remedy widespread gaps in access and affordability.

No need for maps of existing advanced telecom infrastructure with "public option" fiber reaching nearly every American home.

According to Sherry Lichtenberg, deputy director at the National Regulatory Research Institute, having a big sum of money with which to attack the digital divide will be important, but the key issue may actually be figuring out where to spend it all. “We still don’t really have a good map that shows where things are available,” she said. “It’s important to know who’s got service, who doesn’t have service, where service could be provided if somebody asked for it, and where people are really getting it even if they are asking for it because of the way the rules are written.”

 It Will Take a Lot More Than Money to Fix the Digital Divide

There is no need for maps of existing advanced telecom infrastructure provided the Biden administration's proposed infrastructure plan offers affordable "public option" fiber connections to nearly every American home. It's already known that only about one third of U.S. homes are passed by fiber, most of it built by investor owned providers that limit construction to cherry picked neighborhoods. 

That's unlikely to change anytime soon since their business models demanding rapid returns on capital investment drive them to target dense MDU and greenfield development. They also charge a price premium for fiber throughput, marketing it as high end "gigabit" service that makes higher income areas a priority for fiber infrastructure deployment.

Purpose of "broadband maps" is to protect legacy incumbent telephone and cable companies, delay progress

FCC leaders say we need a 'national mission' to fix rural broadband - CNET: But before you can really get things going, you have to address one key issue, Rosenworcel said.
"Our broadband maps are terrible," she said. "If we're going to solve this nation's broadband problems, then the first thing we have to do is fix those maps. We need to know where broadband is and is not in every corner of this country." You can't solve a problem you can't measure, she added.

And one can't reach a destination or goal without a plan. Rather than serve that purpose, American policymakers have instead used "broadband maps" to protect legacy incumbent telephone and cable companies and delay progress. They're continuing the fool's errand the incumbents assigned them. Policymakers instead need to set the goal of bringing fiber to every home, school and business and work from the rebuttable presumption that it doesn't exist in most of the nation.

"Broadband mapping" -- a favorite diversionary and delaying tactic of incumbents

Defining and Mapping Broadband Will Ensure Scarce Resources Are Used Effectively to Establish Universal Service, ITIF Testifies Before U.S. House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee | ITIF: To understand the current landscape of broadband offerings, the government must continue to define and map broadband service. Definitions of broadband in law or regulation should be grounded in what is actually offered, not a prospective or aspirational goal, and should avoid getting too far ahead of trends, or risk unduly shaping the services offered. The FCC generally takes the right approach in defining broadband, with some notable exceptions, said Brake. He pointed to the recent decision, as a component of the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) 2015 Broadband Progress Report, to adjust their definition of “advanced telecommunications capability” upwards from 4 to 25 Mbps download as an unfortunate change in the “definition” of broadband. This decision was rightly controversial, as the 25 Mbps threshold seemed carefully chosen to paint a particular picture of industry, defining away competition, and unhelpfully focused on the lack of overbuilds in areas that are uneconomical to serve. We should continue to map broadband access, said Brake, and the FCC is generally on the right track with its data collection.

So-called "broadband mapping" is a favorite diversionary tactic employed legacy incumbent telephone and cable companies. Instead of a truly useful plan for modernizing the nation's metallic telecommunications infrastructure with fiber connections serving every American household, business and institution, the "broadband mapping" tactic keeps the focus on the minutia of "broadband speeds" and what "broadband speeds" are offered in a given neighborhood. The gambit also serves the needs of incumbents by creating delay as various stakeholders debate the accuracy of the maps rather than building urgently needed fiber to the premise (FTTP) telecommunications infrastructure.

Framing the issue in terms of "broadband speeds" instead of FTTP infrastructure enables incumbents and their antiquated metallic infrastructures built for telephone and cable TV service decades ago since these infrastructures must naturally constrain Internet protocol (IP) throughput given their limited carrying capacity. Public policy shouldn't enable the delaying of technological progress. Instead of managing "broadband service offerings" over the incumbents' vertically integrated infrastructures, the policy the United States needs now and for the future is to fund a crash federal initiative to bring open access FTTP networks to every American doorstep. The nation is already a generation late in building it. Policymakers should reject further delaying tactics by legacy incumbents hell bent on fighting the future.

More nonsensical "broadband mapping" BS

Senators Agree That Accurate Mapping is Essential for Broadband Expansion: The CN subsidiary, Connect Michigan, found 44 percent of working-age Michigan adults rely on Internet access to seek or apply for jobs, while 22 percent further their education by taking online classes. But, it all starts with accurate data mapping, which is so important. A fact U.S. Senators Gary Peters (D-MI), Joe Manchin (D-WV), Roger Wicker (R-MS), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Deb Fischer (R-NE), Jerry Moran (R-KS), and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) each acknowledged this week when they introduced the Rural Access bill.

“Millions of rural Americans in Kansas and many other states depend on the promise of mobile broadband buildout efforts, and this critical expansion depends on the accuracy of current coverage data and uniformity in how it is collected,” Senator Moran told Global Affairs. “As we work to close the broadband gap, our providers must have standardized, clear data so they can plan out ways to reach communities most in need of access.” “We can’t close the digital divide if we don’t know where the problem is,” Senator Schatz said. “This bill will help us understand which communities still have bad wireless broadband coverage, so that we can move ahead and fix it.”

This is complete nonsense (or bullshit if you prefer) for two reasons:

1. It conflates premise service needed by the families, businesses, schools, agricultural producers and people who need access to seek or apply for jobs or take online classes -- cited in the news release -- with mobile wireless service. They aren't one in the same.

2. It assumes the "digital divide" can be closed by mapping areas redlined by incumbent landline ISPs. Problem is the incumbent ISPs already know where the redlined neighborhoods are since they redlined them in the first place. What's a "broadband map" going to do to change that situation? Moreover, providers other than incumbents can't plop down discrete networks to fill the swiss cheese holes represented the redlined neighborhoods because telecommunications infrastructure operates as a network over wide areas. Nor would the economics pencil out.

Yet another silly "broadband mapping" project

FCC Plans to Map Broadband Access to Aid Chronic Disease Care: The new mapping tool aims to continue this mission by identifying gaps in connectivity at the neighborhood level, highlighting opportunities for improvement, and giving community coalitions the data they need to form new partnerships and tailor their activities to their unique needs. (Emphasis added).

Yet another useless, going though the motions "broadband mapping" project. The United States would have had fiber connecting every home, business and institution in place by 2010 had it done the proper planning and construction starting a generation ago. Today, very few areas of the nation are fully fibered. The opportunity for improvement is most everywhere. A map isn't needed to illustrate that.

Resolution Seeks High-Speed Internet For All Putney Residents | Vermont Public Radio

Resolution Seeks High-Speed Internet For All Putney Residents | Vermont Public Radio: “The governor made us a promise at town meeting here last year that he would get everything wired 100 percent, no ifs, ands or buts,” Field says. “I’ve got the quote.”

Instead, area lawmakers got an earful from residents who say they’re tired of hearing that Putney already has Internet service.

"Close to 300 of us in Putney only have dial-up," says Field. "In my case I pay $80 a month to Hughes.net. Can’t Skype, can’t stream anything. My wife’s a pediatrician in town. She can’t do her electronic medical records."

Nancy Braus says people on her road are getting Internet from Comcast or Fairpoint. But not her house. Braus has a daughter who’s deaf.

A couple of observations on this story:

• It's an example of the blow back politicians face after years of promises to address deficiencies in premises wireline Internet service with little or no tangible results.
• Ms. Braus's comment illustrates the highly granular nature of broadband redlining that renders government subsidy programs based on mapping and funding only "unserved" and "underserved" areas impractical. One address is offered service by incumbent wireline providers while another nearby premise is not.

Petitions or "broadband mapping," the end result is the same: Bumpkes

Mark dance sundridge broadband campaign pointless | This is Kent: Jane Hunter from the Westerham Town Partnership has campaigned at every opportunity to add names to the petition but she says she is not surprised to hear the votes will not influence the rollout.

"They have been stringing us along for no reason," she said. "They don't want people hassling them so they haven't told us the reality of the situation.

"And while we have been given figures by the council they never answer any of our questions on exactly what the criteria were for which areas would be part of the superfast project.

Across the Atlantic in the United States, petition drives similar to this one in the U.K. -- some dating back years and encouraged by incumbent providers and misguided demand aggregators -- proved equally pointless. Signatures on petitions can't overcome market failure and are just as futile as "mapping" broadband not spots will make them disappear. The result at the end of the effort is the same: bumpkes.

Mississippi map malarkey

A fundamental purpose of a map is to plan a route to an end point – a destination.  But when it comes to what’s called “broadband mapping,” the goal isn’t the destination.  In fact, this wasteful activity has resulted in a circular journey to nowhere, diverting precious resources that could otherwise be invested in building out Internet telecommunications infrastructure as this boondoggle out of Mississippi painfully illustrates. 

It’s a good thing the United States chose not to remedy the market failure that produced large gaps in electric power and telephone service availability in the early part of the 20^th Century by engaging in folly such as drawing up maps of existing electrical and telephone service and promoting electricity and telephone adoption where there was no service.  If that had been the policy, many areas of the nation might not have had power or telephone service until well into the 1950s and 1960s.

Connected company muscled state agency out of Internet contract - Florida - MiamiHerald.com

Connected company muscled state agency out of Internet contract - Florida - MiamiHerald.com: TALLAHASSEE -- In 2009, with more than a quarter of all Floridians without broadband access to the Internet at home, state officials lined up to get some of the $7 billion in federal stimulus money to finance state-based programs to increase access.

Enter Connected Nation, a little known but well connected Washington-based company. It won the Florida contract to use $2.5 million to map the broadband gaps for use by policy makers and telecommunications companies.

A year later, when the state won a second grant for $6.3 million to extend the broadband efforts, Connected Nation, a non-profit company, believed it had signed up to be part of a public-private partnership with the state that entitled the firm to a no-bid shot at that money too. But the Department of Management Services, the state agency that housed the project, disagreed.

DMS said the grant requires it to use some of the money to pay for three more years of broadband mapping and the rest to expand broadband access in libraries and schools.
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The real story here is the tragic policy failure of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to provide technical assistance funding to communities interested in building their own open access fiber to the premises networks instead of dubious "broadband mapping" projects.  It would have been a far more productive use of money to fill in the gaps with actual infrastructure instead of wasting it creating maps that won't connect homes in Florida and other states that remain disconnected from the Internet.

Mixed messages inside a broadband black hole

Life can be odd inside a broadband black hole where the normal laws of logic and common sense get twisted and break down.

Consider, for example, today's mail delivery. It contained the contradictory mix of 1) A letter soliciting Comcast Business Class service, a $79/month bundle of "business class Internet up to 4 times faster than DSL." (Query: how can it be compared to a nonexistent service -- no DSL here) and 2) A big postcard from HughesNet addressed to "DIAL UP INTERNET HOUSEHOLD" inviting me to suck a satellite to get speeds "50X FASTER than dialup." (Thanks but I'll pass).

Two direct mail solicitations: One from a provider that can't deliver what it pitches (Comcast) and another selling a costly, latency larded service (HughesNet) that could be more aptly dubbed MolassesNet.

Somehow these companies don't have their marketing campaigns straight. It's no wonder the government wants to map broadband availability because apparently the providers themselves are confused.

Forget about broadband mapping; it's time for consumers to take control

I concur with Art Brodsky of Public Knowledge that "broadband mapping" is an exercise in distraction and a waste of time and money better directed to getting broadband infrastructure in place. Infrastructure that was needed yesterday, last year and five years ago in much of the U.S. No map can provide that.

In fact, as Brodsky suggests, mapping is nothing but a feel good PR ploy favored by the telco/cable duopoly to create an impression they're doing something to fill in the holes while at the same time playing hide the pea. It's about going through the motions while doing nothing.

Homeowners and small business owners don't need a map to know they're in a broadband black hole when they're forced to resort to early 1990s era dial up or substandard satellite for Internet connectivity. They should get together with their neighbors and take control of their telecommunications destiny by forming fiber optic telecom consumer cooperatives as quickly as possible and applying for federal and state grants and loans to help finance the cost of deploying the fiber. Bringing the U.S. last mile telecommunications infrastructure up to date is a bottom up-- not top down -- endeavor that does not require maps.