Reps. Bob Latta (R-Ohio), ranking member of the House Communications Subcommittee, and Peter Welch (D-Vt.) have introduced the Broadband Mapping After Scrutiny (MAPS) Act 

The bill would create a challenge process to verify fixed and mobile broadband service coverage data, as there currently is for handing out some broadband subsidies, and would require data to be verifiable, but does not explain how that would happen.

“Our communities know better than a map if they have access to fast, reliable broadband,” said Latta. “While we know these broadband maps are inaccurate," said Latta, "there currently isn’t a way for local governments to challenge them -- the Broadband MAPS Act would change that, making it easier for unserved and underserved communities to make their case to the FCC. Better maps mean better broadband availability.”

Related: Senate Looks into Broadband Mapping Issues

Welch sounded like he was trying to convince a dataholic to get treatment. "It is essential that broadband maps accurately depict broadband deployment, especially in rural areas,” he said. “The first step in solving a problem is admitting there is one."

The bill says that "Not later than 6 months after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Commission shall initiate a rulemaking to establish a challenge process to collect and use fixed and mobile broadband service coverage data submitted to the Commission by private entities and State, local, and Tribal government entities to verify fixed and mobile broadband service coverage data reported to the Commission by fixed and mobile broadband service providers."

The bill will include standards for "consistent and accurate" reporting methods and a way to validate the accuracy of the data submitted.

FCC Chairman has conceded the FCC needs better data and a better process than the one that, he pointed out as recently as Thursday, he had inherited when he got the job.

The FCC was bitten by its current broadband data collection regime when it released a draft deployment report based on wildly overinflated figures for one carrier, though the FCC said the corrected report still showed gains.

THe FCC is currently collecting comment on improving broadband data. USTelecom and NCTA-The Internet & Television Association have both offered up competing proposals on how to gather more granular, and thus more accurate, data.

Unlike Republicans, Democrats were not handing out laurels to President Donald Trump's infrastructure investment plan, which was fleshed out in a White House document Monday (Feb. 12).

Related: President Fleshes Out Infrastructure Plan

“I am deeply disappointed that the president failed to include dedicated broadband funding in his infrastructure proposal," Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), co-chair of the House Rural Broadband Caucus, said. "This glaring omission is a betrayal of the rural voters that supported him in his election, and a missed opportunity to close the digital divide that separates rural and urban America. A robust rural broadband network is essential to attract businesses, provide access to healthcare through telemedicine, help farmers become more efficient, and close the homework gap that hamstrings rural students.”

The president's plan includes $50 billion for rural infrastructure, including rural broadband, but also including bridges, rail airports, inland ports, public transit, drinking water, storm water, power, electric, flood management and more. That is part of $200 billion in direct funding that the White House said will drive $1.5 billion in infrastructure investment in public and private funds.

“President Trump’s infrastructure proposal is woefully inadequate for addressing the urgent needs of modernizing our nation’s infrastructure," said Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), ranking member of the House Energy & Commerce Committee. "The proposal does not include any new funding, and it forces the majority of costs onto cash-strapped state and local governments."

The president proposed leveraging $200 billion in government funding into $1.5 trillion in infrastructure upgrades and deployment. "President Trump spared no expense and required no offsets for his tax scam benefitting corporations and the wealthiest few," said Pallone, "but he refuses to provide any new funding to repair our crumbling infrastructure."

That "tax scam" was a reference to the Republican-backed tax cut bill that, among other things, reduced the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%.

A quartet of House Democrats are calling on the FCC not to delay action on its business data services (BDS) reforms and are asking their congressional colleagues to add their voices to that call.

Some ISPs have argued that the FCC needs to take a fresh look at the marketplace (Related: FCC Pressed to Re-Vet BDS Study) in light of some new data, or actually old data not submitted by major cable operators until recently, before acting on the proposal.

A politically divided FCC voted April 28 to propose remaking regulation of the business broadband marketplace and potentially regulating rates for cable operators' BDS (formerly known as "special access") service.

The FCC is phasing out the presumption of regulating the rates of historically "dominant carriers" – the ILECs (incumbent local exchange carriers) – as a way to boost competition from "nondominant" CLECs (competitive local exchange carriers) and from cable competitors and instead regulate the rates of any of them as it deems necessary. That is in the name of boosting price and service competition for the "special-access"—rebranded by the FCC as "broadband data"—services.

In a "dear colleague letter" this week, which is essentially a solicitation of support for their position from other members of Congress, House Communications Subcommittee member Anna Eshoo (Calif.), and Reps. Doris Matsui (Calif.), Peter Welch (Mass.) and Mike Doyle (Ap.) say the FCC already has all the info it needs.

"Chairman Wheeler has stated that reform of this market is essential for promoting competition, benefiting individual and business consumers, and unleashing the true potential of next generation wireless services," they wrote. "During the most recent Energy & Commerce Committee FCC Oversight Hearing in July, he testified that BDS reform is not only important for competition today, but necessary to meet our national priority of leading the world in 5G wireless services.

"The time has come for the FCC to use the extensive data collected over the last several years to undertake competition-based reform of the BDS market in urban and rural areas alike.  We commend Chairman Wheeler for his leadership on this important issue."

Cable operators are not happy with the FCC proposal, which would for the first time apply regs, including potentially rate regs, to all players in the BDS market, not just the incumbent telcos who have dominated access to the business lines and have been required to provide access on reasonable terms and conditions to new entrants like cable operators. Those cable operators say that the reward they get for building out plant is to get regulated like an incumbent.

The letter came only a couple of days after a group of Senators (and one independent) urged the FCC to factor in more recent cable information into their calculation for revamping its rules, though they did not say that would necessarily delay the process.

The FCC collected data from stakeholders on the BDS marketplace for several years before releasing the first report, which it used to buttress its case for BDS reforms. It only recently put out the peer reviews. But cable operators had to submit some new data and the report was tweaked and re-released along with the new data. That came on the same day initial comments were due on the BDS proposal based in part on the report.

CenturyLink and the others say that should warrant new peer reviews of the report, which should then be put out for comment.

The legislators, who are well versed in rural telecom issues, will address the small and medium-sized telecom members March 4. The committee is in the midst of a planned rewrite of communications law.

"ACA is delighted that Reps. Latta and Welch will join us for an informative bipartisan overview of the key issues on Capitol Hill that ACA members care about,” said ACA President Matt Polka in announcing the new speakers. “I know ACA members will benefit from this session because Reps. Latta and Welch know the formula for unlocking innovation and driving investment in broadband technology in small and mid-sized markets with unique economic characteristics.”

Polka will quiz the pair on their decision to form the the E&C rural telecom working group, as well as "their interest in bipartisan telecom policy outcomes and what they hope to achieve in new and updated communications laws."

The summit is being held March 3-5 and has already lined up Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), chairman of the House Communications Subcommittee, who will speak March 4. (http://www.multichannel.com/news/policy/rep-walden-speak-aca-summit/387143).

ACA's annual summit is an opportunity for the 800-plus smaller and midsized operators that the association represents to get together to talk policy strategy and speak to regulators and legislators individually, but with one voice, about their key issues.