The third version of the National Broadband Map, which represents coverage data provided by ISPs as of June 30, 2023, was released last week by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
FCC Broadband Card (V3): Unserved locations dropped by more than 13% in six months
The Commission has published an updated version of the map after publishing the first draft in November last year. To determine state allocations for the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program, NTIA used the most recent version of the map, released in May.
As stated by Jessica Rosenworcel, Chairman of the FCC in the United States, the number of places in the country without access to broadband has decreased to 7.2 million, compared to 8.3 million in version 2, on the based on data from December 31, 2022. Over six months, this represents a drop of more than 13%.
Rosenworcel wrote in a blog post: “Providers are connecting more locations to free government high-speed internet through the commission’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund and Connect America Fund, in addition to other funded programs and projects by the federal government, the state and the private sector. »
She said: “Since our last release, we have launched mobile coverage audits in a number of states. We also saw hundreds of corrections to vendor-reported data based on verification efforts initiated by the FCC.
She added: “Going forward, we expect that any changes in the number of sites will largely reflect changes on the ground, such as the construction of new housing. »
The FCC map provides public access to file locations or availability issues and provides in-depth insight into broadband serviceable locations.
Rosenworcel says the FCC has handled about 1.5 million location issues and 4.8 million availability issues reported by providers.
Rosenworcel pointed out that there are now 115 million locations served by broadband, an increase of 800,000 since version 2.
Besides the freshly built slots, the FCC only plans to add a few missing slots for version 4, according to Rosenworcel’s blog. In version 4, location data from several months will be combined with broadband availability from the end of 2023.
In versions 1 and 2 of the map, nearly 3 million locations served by broadband were added and nearly 2 million were removed, for a net gain of 1 million sites.
Under the direction of the NTIA, each state will oversee the $42.5 billion BEAD rural broadband funding program. Version 2 of the FCC Map served as the basis for state allocations for the BEAD program.
The FCC is pursuing other initiatives aimed at closing the digital divide in addition to the updated map. Final rules aimed at “preventing” and “eliminating” digital discrimination were approved by the FCC this month.
The Commission also considers that the national fixed broadband reference speed should be increased from 25/3 Mbps to 100/20 Mbps.
The updated map can be viewed here via this link: https://broadbandmap.fcc.gov/home
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