At their core, maps are about using data to tell a story. And we may be biased, but we love a good map about the Internet around here. Hexes, polygons, availability maps: they're all equally good. Whether in service to educating the public, or making a policy point, or helping local leaders make more informed choices as they work for the collective good, maps can be a powerful tool.

Every year since 2018, mapping gurus from the United States and around the world have come together to have some fun by putting together 30 maps in 30 days. Different types of maps and conceptual frameworks invite both builders and viewers to look at the world in new ways, and have some fun along the way.

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ILSR is joining in this year, and throughout the month of November we'll be releasing a new map every day showing featuring Internet infrastructure and digital equity in news ways. See the categories above. 

Every day we'll publish a new map about the Internet, and post them to our StoryMaps page. The first is already live: showing mobile wireless towers in and around Phoenix, Arizona, that have been disguised to look like something else.

Got an idea for a map we should make? Email is at [email protected].

P.S. Maps about the Internet are nothing new: Vox collected 40 Maps About the Internet all the way back in 2014 (my favorites are numbers 8, 18, and 32).

In 2011, we built our first map showing where community-owned networks were located across the United States. At the time, it aimed to illustrate what we knew to be true: that more than 100 communities were choosing to fill the local broadband marketplace by building and/or operating their own networks.

The goal was twofold: to highlight the work local governments were doing to fix the broken broadband market in their communities, and collect in one place the breadth,  depth, and variety of community-owned networks. Over time, we added Tribal networks, and those operated by telephone and electric cooperatives.

Today we release a new version of our Community Networks Map, showing where municipal networks operate across the United States and how they are bringing new, more affordable service and competition to communities around the country. From 130 networks covering a similar number of communities in 2011, the new map shows that municipally owned Internet service providers now total more than 400 networks covering more than 700 communities. A third of those networks provide high-speed Internet access to nearly every address in the communities where they are located.

Blueprints for BEAD is a series of short notes and analysis on nuances of BEAD that might otherwise get lost in the volume of material published on this federal funding program. Click the “Blueprints for BEAD” tag at the bottom of this story for other posts.

There are still almost two dozen states that have yet to go through the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program challenge process, which will lock down those locations that will be eligible for federal broadband infrastructure funding. And one refrain we’ve heard over and over from those in states that have already completed theirs is that, despite NTIA’s best efforts, it's complicated and hard. 

States have been given significant leeway in setting the rules for developing a challenge process wherein unserved and underserved locations can be identified. Lacking clear direction from the NTIA for what may seem like insignificant details, the often-hastily developed rules have in many states resulted in opaque processes characterized by a lack of clear communication and outreach. The resulting state guidance on how to request a data license, navigate a challenge portal, and submit challenges has left many local governments, small ISPs, Tribes, and nonprofits feeling defeated about their ability to participate. Without the detailed counsel on strategies for identifying prospective challenges, the scale of impact that this group of eligible entities could have on BEAD outcomes has been significantly narrowed. 

This is particularly troubling because widening the circle of those who can effectively participate is important. Residents, local governments, and nonprofits often have the best sense of exactly where the connectivity gaps in their communities exist. They also know what form the digital divide takes - whether in reliability, or cost, or latency, or available speeds. But so far, the challenge process for BEAD has been dominated by the largest ISPs that have the staff and expertise to interact with large amounts of geographic data in a relatively short period of time.

Blueprints for BEAD is a series of short notes and analysis on nuances of BEAD that might otherwise get lost in the volume of material published on this federal funding program. Click the “Blueprints for BEAD” tag at the bottom of this story for other posts.
 

By mid June, we will have blown past the halfway mark in the BEAD challenge process - with more than thirty states having completed their “challenge windows” and another handful set to close imminently. But the “challenge window” is only part of the overall challenge process, and there are reasons for communities to stay engaged with the process even after that window closes. Communities - don’t sleep on the rebuttal window!

Where We Sit Today

Each state must conduct a challenge process prior to opening up BEAD grants to verify that the data on the National Broadband Map is accurate. That process will have three stages: the challenge window, the rebuttal window, and the determination window. During the challenge window, eligible challengers (local and Tribal governments, nonprofits, and ISPs) can present evidence that locations are incorrectly categorized as served, underserved, or served. According to the NTIA’s Challenge Process Policy Notice, those same eligible entities can participate in the rebuttal window, where they supply evidence refuting a challenge that was made by someone else. After both of these periods are over, the state weighs all of the evidence and makes a final determination (determination window). 

Why might this rebuttal period be important for communities? In short, not all challenges are created equally. While we might primarily think of challenges that make the map more accurate, some challenges could, in fact, make the map less accurate. Some ISPs might make questionable challenges about the level of service they can or will provide.

The nonprofit digital equity organization Connect Humanity has struck a new partnership with Microsoft to fund the deployment of affordable broadband access to long neglected residents of Appalachia.

The new partnership, outlined in a recent announcement, will leverage the Connect Humanity’s IDEA Fund (Investing in Digital Equity Appalachia) to help finance community-focused Internet Service Providers (ISPs) “best placed to meet the digital needs of residents and businesses in Appalachia’s unserved areas.”

Appalachia – which technically stretches from the Catskill Mountains in New York State to the hills of Mississippi – continues to be among the least connected areas in the nation. Appalachian residents are 31 percent more likely than the national population to lack a broadband subscription, and fewer than 20 percent of households use the internet at broadband speeds.

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Only 25 of the existing 423 Appalachian counties meet or exceed the national average for broadband speeds – and all were in metropolitan areas. Given the unreliable nature of FCC broadband maps, Appalachia’s digital divide is likely worse than measurements indicate.

Schoharie County, New York officials have applied for a $30 million New York State ConnectALL grant with the hopes of eventually building a $33 million, county-wide fiber network.

The shape and scope of the network has yet to be determined, but the county hopes to build a network that brings affordable access to the rural, agriculture-heavy county.

“Schoharie County applied for the grant under the NYS MIP program on April 19th, in an attempt to bring high speed broadband access to every premise in the county,” Deputy County Administrator Jim Halios told ILSR.

Notoriously over-optimistic FCC data currently states that Schoharie County enjoys 92 percent broadband coverage county-wide. In reality, broadband access in the county is largely dominated by a monopoly enjoyed by Charter Spectrum, which was nearly kicked out of the state entirely in 2019 for misleading regulators and failing to evenly deploy access.

As debate continues about the “collision course” between the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) and Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) programs, it is worth highlighting the unique leverage Tribal nations have to resolve these concerns on Tribal lands as well as the challenges they may face in navigating the process.

Existing state and federal grant/loan programs are considered “enforceable commitments” under BEAD rules, making locations funded through those programs, including RDOF, ineligible for BEAD grants (unless those awards are declared to be in default). This rule prevents “duplication” of federal or state funding for broadband infrastructure build-outs.

The debate has emerged because some communities are concerned that RDOF-funded building has not yet begun and, in some cases, may never be built-out. In the meantime those locations remain ineligible for BEAD because of these enforceable commitments.

However, the rules about enforceable commitments and duplication are different on Tribal lands. When issuing its BEAD guidance, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) determined that federal and state grant funding for buildout on Tribal lands – like RDOF – that do not carry Tribal Government Resolutions of consent are not considered to be enforceable commitments.

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Without formal Tribal consent in the form of a legally binding agreement, which includes a Tribal Government Resolution, funding programs like RDOF should have no bearing on the BEAD eligibility of locations on Tribal lands. As long as they are not currently receiving service from a provider, these locations should remain BEAD-eligible.

Language added to a New York State budget bill is threatening to undermine a municipal broadband grant program established by Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office earlier this year.

Known as the Municipal Infrastructure Program, it was designed to provide grant funding for municipalities in the state eager to build publicly-owned, locally controlled broadband infrastructure as a way to ensure ubiquitous, affordable access to high-quality Internet after decades of frustration with expensive, spotty and uneven service from the regional monopolies.

Currently, New York state lawmakers are in the midst of budget proposal season in which the Governor’s office and both legislative chambers (the state Senate and Assembly) have until April 1 to reconcile and complete a final budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

Buried near the bottom of the Assembly budget proposal (A8805B) is a Trojan horse legislative sources say is being pushed by lobbyists representing Charter Spectrum, the regional cable monopoly and 2nd largest cable company in the U.S. that was nearly kicked out of New York by state officials in 2018 for atrocious service.