The commission also adopted regulations that will require internet service providers to submit more granular and standardized data. The agency recently awarded a contract for the development of its broadband data collection system, which will gather location-specific data on 3G, 4G LTE, and 5G signal availability. The maps have been a priority for the acting FCC chairwoman, Jessica Rosenworcel, who formed a Broadband Data Task Force after taking control of the agency. Congress provided $65 million to fund that effort. Last year, former President Donald Trump signed a law (requiring the FCC to draw more detailed maps than the current ones, which provide data only as granular as the census block level. Though the consensus is that the new maps will be an improvement over the status quo, states and private-sector companies are moving forward with their own solutions.īetter broadband maps have been a priority for Democratic and Republican administrations. And they may not be ready to go for one or two years, experts say. There's one catch: the new maps don’t exist yet. To qualify, proposals would have to comply with new broadband maps drawn by the Federal Communications Commission. That’s the amount of grant funding that the legislation, which the Senate passed earlier this month on a 69-30 vote, would provide to states to fund broadband projects in areas currently considered unserved or underserved. The Senate’s bipartisan infrastructure bill makes a $42.5 billion bet that the government will overcome an obstacle that has long plagued efforts to connect most Americans to the internet: notoriously inaccurate maps showing where they can get a signal – and where they can’t.
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