Broadband's big spending day is coming soon; FCC's new map showing levels of service is better, but still incomplete

Photo by deepblue4you, Getty Images, via Route Fifty

The Federal Communications Commission has updated its broadband map that it will use to guide $42.5 billion in high-speed-internet investments, but still has work to do with grants scheduled in thre weeks, reports Kery Murakami of Route Fifty.

The map has changed as states and localities filed and won thousands of challenges to the previous version. The new map added "330,000 more unserved or underserved locations that had been missed in the previous version, bringing to 8.3 million the number of homes and businesses with no or poor internet service, according to the FCC. In addition, the new versions of the map added more than 1 million locations that were not included in the first draft," Murakami reports. "While the map is not perfect, says Robert Fish, deputy director of Vermont's broadband office, it seems to be more accurate. The state has successfully filed 8,100 challenges to it," and 2,700 of those results still aren't on the map, Fish says.

Texas Route Fifty contrasts "Alaska, which could get about $180 million more than it would have under earlier map versions," and Michigan, which "could lose about $400 million . . . according to a review of the new FCC data in a newsletter followed by many in the broadband industry," published by Mike Conlow, director of network strategy for the tech company Cloudflare. He predicts "nearly half the states will be getting more money, while others will be getting less than originally anticipated," Murakami reports.