Recent developments hopefully will bring closer to completion the updated FCC broadband service availability maps upon which numerous subsidy programs depend. Significantly, a challenge filed by a losing bidder for a foundational multimillion dollar contract has been resolved. Meanwhile, the Commission has specified what data broadband providers must submit and set a September 1, 2022, filing deadline.
The Broadband Deployment Accuracy and Technological Availability (DATA) Act states that a number of broadband funding programs must rely upon new, more accurate, but not-yet-completed FCC broadband service availability maps when determining which locations in fact are unserved – and therefore eligible for subsidies.
Moreover, and as I argued in "Overlapping Broadband Appropriations Demand Agency Coordination: New FCC Maps Can Track Grants, Avert Waste," a recent Perspectives from FSF Scholars, those maps can and should be leveraged to safeguard against duplicative grants, overbuilds of privately financed networks, and waste and fraud.
Notably, these same concerns inspired a March 15, 2022, letter from Senator Roger Wicker (R – MS), ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, to the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC). In his letter, Senator Wicker urged the PRAC to perform the oversight necessary "to ensure the federal funds allocated for broadband deployment are spent as Congress intended."
However, and as I pointed out in "Waiting for Updated FCC Broadband Maps," a February 2022 post to the Free State Foundation's blog, those maps are not yet ready for primetime. And their completion date remains TBD.
Fortunately, one significant hurdle standing in the way – a challenge to the FCC's decision to award a $44.9 million contract to CostQuest Associates (CostQuest) – has been cleared.
On November 9, 2021, the FCC selected CostQuest over a number of competing applicants to create the "Broadband Serviceable Location Fabric" – that is, the master list of every conceivable location to which high-speed Internet service might be provided. Shortly thereafter, one of the losing bidders, LightBox Parent, LP (LightBox), filed a protest with the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).
In a February 24, 2022, decision, the GAO denied in part and dismissed in part that protest, finding that the FCC "conducted a tradeoff and concluded that CostQuest's proposal represented the best value to the government."
A March 2, 2022, CostQuest press release announced that it "has officially been contracted to deliver the broadband location data to support the Commission's Broadband Data Collection (BDC) program."
In addition, the FCC recently released three Public Notices and one Order offering clarity and guidance to fixed and mobile broadband providers:
- On February 22, 2022, it announced a September 1, 2022, deadline for the submission of broadband availability data.
- On March 4, 2022, it released a Public Notice defining "specifications related to the biannual submission of subscription, availability, and supporting data."
- On March 9, 2022, it adopted an Order detailing "the mobile challenge, verification, and crowdsourcing processes" required by the Broadband DATA Act and a Public Notice announcing the publication of "two data specifications … provid[ing] additional detail about the technical elements of the data to be collected as part of" those processes.
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