- The GAO made recommendations to 2 federal agencies to improve broadband programs
- It recommended the FCC work more closely with smaller broadband players to assist with mapping challenges
- It recommended the NTIA work with states to monitor ISP's financial stability
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) put out a report at the end of August about closing the digital divide with federal funds, and it made two recommendations — one to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and one to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).
GAO is Congress' independent watchdog over federal programs, investigating whether agencies are managing those programs legally and effectively.
In the case of broadband, it looked at programs managed by the FCC, the NTIA, and the Departments of Agriculture and the Treasury. For example, NTIA oversees the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program. And Treasury oversees the Capital Projects Fund, a $10-billion grant program available to states and territories for broadband infrastructure projects.
What did GAO recommend?
GAO made two recommendations at the end of its report: one to FCC and one to NTIA:
- The Chair of the FCC should conduct targeted outreach to smaller participants (such as local and tribal governments and providers), to identify and address difficulties they have experienced completing the bulk Broadband Data Collection (BDC) challenge process, which is part of the process to collect data for the FCC’s national broadband map.
- The NTIA Administrator should provide information to NTIA’s partner states and territories on when and why to request additional information from BEAD recipients, to monitor and support their ability to remain financially sustainable in offering affordable broadband during the 10-year federal interest period.
Why is the broadband mapping process challenging?
In terms of the map challenge process, GAO wrote that local governments, tribes and industry associations reported difficulties with the bulk challenge process and that it was overly burdensome. “For example, according to one participant, they had to provide separate service availability information for each individual location that was part of the challenge, instead of using the geospatial data the participant had readily available regarding service coverage,” wrote GAO. “The need to submit information for each location was prohibitively labor intensive and ultimately dissuaded the participant from filing a bulk challenge.”
As far as the recommendation for NTIA to support grant winners’ ability to remain financially sustainable, this was a top-of-mind concern at the recent Mountain Connect conference in Denver.
While neither NTIA nor state broadband offices can require BEAD award winners to submit financial reports outside of the 4-year deployment period, NTIA can assist states, suggesting which data to request from BEAD recipients to best monitor their performance and financial sustainability, during the 10-year federal interest period.
“Such information could include considerations about provider defaults in other BEAD projects and other broadband deployment programs and requesting network performance data from subrecipients that have defaulted,” wrote GAO. “By providing this information to states, NTIA could help ensure the program’s objective of offering affordable broadband to currently underserved areas."