Broadband Development Office Talks Deadlines

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently released a draft of a new federal broadband map, and state governments were asked to submit challenges to its accuracy ahead of the Jan. 13 deadline. The goal is to create a more accurate resource for figuring out Internet speeds nationwide.

The purpose of Friday’s deadline was for the federal government to obtain enough Internet availability data to inform the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) on how to best allocate $42.5 billion in Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) grants to states and territories, which is scheduled to happen June 30.

Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar recently announced the release of the state’s broadband map showcasing which areas might be eligible to receive funding for broadband expansion projects. The map uses data from Internet service providers (ISPs) to show the types of high-speed Internet access used across the state.

As for how releasing Texas’ map ties into the FCC’s Jan. 13 deadline, it doesn’t, at least not directly, according to Greg Conte, director of the state’s Broadband Development Office.

“We’re getting the same data that ISPs are submitting to the FCC,” Conte told Industry Insider — Texas, but “we just don’t have the data to really challenge anything on the FCC map because we already have the data that was submitted to them (ISPs).”

He expanded further, saying, “the Jan. 13 deadline is just availability challenges; it has nothing to do with location challenges. The FCC has put out their V2 (second version) fabric at the end of December, so location challenges to that fabric won’t be incorporated into the June 30 allocation from the NTIA. That doesn’t mean we’re not going to submit location challenges; we certainly will.”

However, the Texas Broadband Development Office plans to focus on how its new map measures up against the FCC’s V2 fabric first.

Once that’s done, Conte said, “we’ll get together sometime late January or early February and start strategizing on how we’re going to submit location challenges to the FCC based upon what we discovered through that process. But you know, when it comes to the Jan. 13 deadline, that’s an outreach perspective for us.”

After that, the plan is to continue updating the map, build its own grant program based on data submitted for the map and begin planning initiatives around planning funds under the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

A longer version of this story appeared in Government Technology, sister publication to Industry Insider — Texas.