FCC Chairman Carr’s Broadband Mapping is Rewarding Fraudulent Claims of Coverage: Where are the Penalties and Fines?

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has put forward a barrage of proceedings with the subplot to dismantle the state telecom utilities — which do exist, — and slice and dice our democratic process and democracy. Not being able to be connected with high-speed broadband, especially is rural areas, or having prices that are out of control is something that this FCC has not only failed to deal with; Carr claims that prices are going down.

And here’s the rub — Carr, in every proceeding, is manipulating the basic data, or failing to examine and investigate basic facts that contradict the assumptions Carr has used to push his orders through.

Broadband Mapping and Data Collection

In every proceeding we hear the same buzz words, the same cliches like ‘unnecessary regulatory burdens”, “streamlining”, — which are nothing more that a euphemism for — there are no penalties or fines, and no serious audits or investigations that might anger those who have been overstating their deployments or getting government subsidies for locations that don’t exist, or they are a swamp or broken down farmhouse.

Here’s what Carr writes about his new broadband mapping plans

“Broadband Data Collection and National Broadband Map. The proposed item aims to streamline processes and reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens and costs while also improving the accuracy of the data collected. Continuing to streamline and improve the data collection and map will enable federal agencies, state, local, and Tribal governments, and other interested stakeholders to carefully and timely target resources where support is needed most.”

But let’s have a reality check on just how incompetent Carr has been.

Broadband Now published a research report last year on broadband mapping, and it found massive holes or overstatements of deployments by the companies. Mapping, then, is important because

§ The companies are overstating their actual deployments and the speed — meaning customers can’t get the services that the map claims should be available.

§ The broadband maps are supposed to inform the government on areas that are served and not served and identify the type of broadband someone can get at their location.

§ Worse, Broadband Now claims that the services that are overstated could be charging the government over $14 billion dollars.

But, based on these findings, the level of incompetence has risen to a new level, especially considering that broadband mapping has been an eyesore for decades.

We wrote this in 2011: If hype were broadband, the U.S. would be №1 Harvard Nieman Watchdog, March 27, 2011 A new FCC report and database describe broadband availability and speeds by Zip Code. Bruce Kushnick put in his Zip, and found that just about all the important information in it was incorrect.

15 years later and in many parts of the US, this mess has never been properly fixed or addressed, regardless of the hype.

Broadband Now research found:

• 33% under- count nationwide: The FCC says 19.6 million Americans lack 100/20 Mbps; our manual address-checker audit shows 26.0 million — an extra 6.4 million people.
• Technology- septic over- reporting: Provider lings overstate real-world availability most sharply for newer fiber networks: 66.5 percent of addresses we audited the FCC lists as fiber-served can’t order a 100/20 Mbps plan today.
• Legacy DSL exaggerations a9ect 48. 7% of listed addresses, fixed-wireless 44. 6%, and cable systems 14. 5%.
• State- level extremes: Iowa and New Mexico miss more than 60% of their truly unserved residents; California’s absolute gap tops 446,000 people.

And the punchline of why these matters? The maps are used to give out government subsidies and the amount these mistakes are costing America in these locations that aren’t served is enormous. According to Broadband Now:

• $14 billion at stake: A 33% mapping error could misroute roughly $14B in BEAD

Carr’s answer to fixing the mapping collection is just another example of the wholesale harm his Delete, Delete, Delete strategy will bring. Instead of addressing the issues raised, Carr has just ignored them, and here he demonstrates his failure to acknowledge the size and scope of the FCC’s failure throughout the entire creation of the US broadband maps. And remember, Carr was general counsel of the FCC under Chairman Ajit Pai, and then Commissioner, starting in 2017. He had 4 years to clean up this mess, and yet here we are.

And with the massive inflated broadband numbers, one would think the FCC would want to be doing more audits and investigations and impose penalties and fines to halt the practice and get billions back for the government.

Wrong: There are no major penalties or fines, and Carr is eliminating the audits or compliance checks that would stop bad practices.

And how bad is this?

The flip side of this; NTCA, the rural broadband association, filed with the FCC that their members are finding a lot of locations that can be a barn, a torn-down shed or even a swamp, but many of these are getting government subsidies. Note: “Fabric” is the name of the underlying details of locations identified for served or unserved.

“NTCA members report significant inaccuracies with respect to the Fabric and as well as highly suspect coverage claims found on the NBM. With respect to the Fabric.

• NTCA members frequently report missing and mislabeled locations. As examples, NTCA members noted that open fields and sheds along train tracks…
• Based upon visual evidence — barns, stock tanks, lakes and swamps in their service areas.

NCTA also points out that attempting to do an official challenge of a suspect location can take months, that there is no transparency in the process and the FCC has decided that it will not take visual evidence — like pictures of a swamp getting broadband funding

• NTCA further noted that members frequently report that the Fabric challenge process lacks transparency and communication.
• There appears to be little to no communication as to whether a Fabric challenge has been accepted after filing. After submission, several months or more can elapse before any response or resolution to a challenge itself is communicated (and in many cases none is ever provided). In addition, there is little to no communication as to why a challenge was denied or the evidence upon which that determination was based.
• Even worse, visual evidence of the sort contained in the Attachment is no longer accepted as part of a Fabric challenge.
• NCTA Conclusion: “It is thus difficult, if not impossible, to assess providers’ coverage claims, particularly over large rural geographic areas with large numbers of locations claimed as served at certain levels of performance, without access to data points and underlying assumptions that form the basis of claims.

Conclusion: When we combine the findings of Broadband Now with these of the NTCA, we must all realize the FCC has already failed us, and Carr’s plans are to Delete will not fix the remaining digital divide, but expand it. Meanwhile, other countries who are bringing fiber will have the services and innovation that require the high speed.

Carr’s plan is to allow for crap wireless to he a substitute when they shut off their copper wired phone service. And if the service doesn’t work — Carr has another proceeding so that the company can have in the terms and conditions, that it is OK for them to take no responsibility.