The administration and Congress are devoting tens of billions of dollars to closing the digital divide. But a key ingredient is missing: an accurate picture of Americans’ internet access.
Washington is finally tackling one of the biggest obstacles to closing the nation’s digital divide: identifying the broadband dead zones where millions of Americans lack fast internet service.
But that’s coming too late for the broadband gold rush of 2021.
States and cities are already allocating more than $10 billion in federal pandemic relief to get broadband into underserved communities — the biggest government investment ever toward increasing internet connectivity. Another $42 billion in broadband expansion money is due to come from the bipartisan infrastructure law that President Joe Biden signed this month, but the government won’t start doling that cash out for at least another year.
For now, though, many states don’t know where to put that first round of cash. They have only a murky picture of where their internet dead spots are, thanks to the federal government’s reliance on broadband mapping methods that dramatically overstate existing coverage.
The Federal Communications Commission’s maps, based on data from telecom providers, have fueled years of complaints from local government leaders and members of Congress alike. And now they pose one of the biggest threats to getting millions more Americans wired with fast internet — an increasingly crucial gateway to jobs, schooling and commerce.
In one Mississippi county, the federal estimates of broadband availability are off by 80 percent, a regulator in that state has said. Ohio, West Virginia and Michigan, three states with huge connectivity shortfalls, have little idea how large their coverage gaps are or which counties have the worst problems.
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Congress has required that better maps be in place before the infrastructure money is spent, which should make it easier to target the neediest areas during the second, larger round. But logistical hurdles are already threatening to delay the planned maps, pushing that larger bucket of money well into the future.
That means counties and towns that need the money now may lose out.
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Current FCC mapping “stinks,” agency Chair Jessica Rosenworcel acknowledged during her mid-November confirmation hearing. “For too long, the FCC’s been working off maps that are not accurate,” she told senators, stressing that staff are “working morning, noon and night” to lock down better data.
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The telecom industry is a big reason the existing data is so spotty, however, given the wariness among ISPs to share proprietary information.
The nation’s central repository of broadband maps has been hosted since 2018 at the FCC, a telecom regulator that has limited authority over the internet. The methodology the FCC uses for those maps has drawn widespread criticism for overestimating coverage: Under the forms that the carriers submit to the agency, if one household has internet, its entire census block is considered covered.
Nationally, this means we still don’t know how many people need assistance, more than a decade after the federal government began releasing national broadband maps.
The official FCC figures say more than 14 million households nationwide are unconnected, lacking at-home broadband speeds of at least 25 megabits per second for downloads and 3 megabits per second for uploads. (The FCC’s current Democratic leadership says this speed definition should be much higher).
But the true figure is closer to 42 million households, according to BroadbandNow, a consumer-centric website launched in 2014 that works with ISPs to get more detailed data about pricing and coverage, while allowing providers to advertise on its platform.
Others have also jumped in to supplement the FCC maps. Microsoft, Ookla and M-Lab have sketched out coverage estimates using speed tests and other methods. Census data has also provided some sense, as has analysis from the Pew Research Center.
The Biden administration assembled these varying datasets into an interactive map this summer while pitching its infrastructure plan, allowing people to compare coverage information with other factors like poverty level. But the tool doesn’t contain any authoritative new data, even if it showcases how sharply the existing estimates vary.
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Washington, late to the rescue
One hard truth is that Washington mostly succeeded at creating a plan to fix its mapping woes — but did so too late to direct 2021’s flood of money.
After years of frustration, Congress passed bipartisan legislation in February 2020 requiring the FCC to collect more accurate data, largely modeled off a 2019 mapping pilot by USTelecom.
Implementing this law happened in slow motion over the nearly two years since.
The FCC finally got $98 million for the effort last December. A month later, Rosenworcel became acting chair and got to work — assembling a data task force, hiring an IT vendor, asking consumers and industry for feedback, and offering an initial wireless coverage map with data from the largest providers.
But many people still don’t expect authoritative maps until well into 2022, something Rosenworcel blames on the slow procurement process.
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- Discussion
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Washington is finally tackling one of the biggest obstacles to closing the nation’s digital divide: identifying the broadband dead zones where millions of Americans lack fast internet service.
But it's coming too late for the broadband gold rush of 2021. https://t.co/WPWnfYXCRc
— POLITICO (@politico) November 29, 2021
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