One of the cornerstones of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act signed into law this month, is the $65 billion it includes for broadband infrastructure, with $2 billion earmarked for rural communities. That money is intended to go to states and communities to bridge the digital divide. There’s a hitch in the plan, however. The agency tasked with carrying out that plan, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), doesn’t have the information it needs to make sure all that money is spent where it needs to be. They don’t have accurate maps of internet dead zones. In fact, most states don’t have that information. What the FCC does have is from telecom providers and it vastly overstates broadband coverage, particularly in rural states. For example, the FCC’s estimate for Arkansas is that about 23% of the population doesn’t have broadband access. Broadbandnow, a data aggregation company that researches and monitors broadband, estimates that about 46% of Arkansans can’t get broadband. The FCC’s data says that 21% of Oklahomans don’t have broadband, BroadbandNow says it’s about 42%. A Mississippi official told Politico that the FCC’s estimate of availability in one of the counties there is off by 80%. But plenty of states with large areas that aren’t covered—including Ohio, West Virginia, and Michigan—have no real data about where those specific gaps are. Which means there will be delays in getting that money out. Read more