Telecom, Cable Groups Push Rival Plans on FCC Broadband Mapping

Two influential industry groups are vying to get the Federal Communications Commission to adopt competing proposals for how to map broadband coverage across the country.

The agency maintains a national map of fixed broadband deployment, based on internet service providers’ self-reported data. But it considers an area covered if just one building in a census block has broadband access. That potentially excludes large swaths of rural areas without coverage from being eligible for broadband subsidies.

The commission uses the map to help determine how to distribute billions of dollars in subsidies to spur network growth in unserved areas. The FCC ...