A pair of U.S. senators from Nevada said the Federal Communications Commission’s new draft map of broadband availability is “deeply flawed” and could cost their state millions in government subsidies.
The FCC is under orders from Congress to come up with better maps. It released a draft late last year in what the agency has said is an iterative process that will benefit from stakeholder input.
Sens. Jacky Rosen and Catherine Cortez Masto, both Democrats representing Nevada, had plenty of input. They told FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel that “[d]espite a clear mandate from Congress, the draft maps are deeply flawed. As Senators representing Nevada, we are seriously concerned about the Nevada map’s accuracy and potential negative impacts on broadband infrastructure funding for our state.”
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The senators told Rosenworcel that Nevada’s State Broadband Office also had concerns about the FCC’s process for challenging the maps, saying it is “based on assumptions that put the onus on consumers to proactively engage with providers, rather than practical access to high-speed internet for consumers or technological realities.”
It is not Rosen’s first bite at what she suggests is a bad apple. She was a lead signatory on an earlier, bipartisan letter to Rosenworcel also questioning the maps’ accuracy.
In November 2022, the FCC released the first draft of its new broadband availability maps meant to more accurately represent broadband coverage as the Biden administration pushes tens of billions of dollars toward its universal broadband pledge.
The maps show location-level information about broadband availability, an upgrade from the census-level data the FCC had previously collected and which had allowed some broadband dead zones to appear live if they were in census blocks with service elsewhere. ▪️
