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Ryan Grewell, who runs a small wireless Internet service provider in Ohio, received an email last month that confirmed some of his worst suspicions about cable companies.
Grewell, founder and general manager of Smart Way Communications, said some customers have told him that the Federal Communications Commission’s new broadband map means fiber Internet service from another company, Jefferson County Cable, is available in their homes. I’ve heard you claim it wrong. These customer reports prompted Grewell to submit a number of assignments to the FCC to correct errors in his Smart Way service his area.
One of Grewell’s challenges elicited a response from Jefferson County Cable executive Bob Loveridge.
“You claimed that we don’t provide service at your residence, and in fact we don’t today,” Loveridge said in a Jan. 9 email Grewell shared with Ars. It writes, “Due to the huge investment in upgrading the service to offer xgpon, we reported to BDC. [Broadband Data Collection] We offer services at your residence so they don’t allocate extra [sic] money for broadband expansion [the] Top private investment in our factory. ”
The email is reminiscent of an article published in November 2022 in which a cable company misrepresented its plans to block government subsidies to its competitors.
In a phone interview with Ars, Grewell said, “The cable company just happened to shout the quiet part.” He called it “a blatant attempt to prevent anyone else from getting funding in the field they are trying to serve.”
It is not clear when Jefferson County Cable plans to service the area. Program rules do not allow ISPs to claim future coverage in map submissions.
Jefferson County Cable eventually admitted that the data it submitted to the FCC was incorrect and had to submit a correction. The ISP’s accepted challenge was to an address on State Route 43 in Bergholtz, Ohio. This town is not one of the coverage areas listed on the Jefferson County Cable website.
I checked the FCC broadband map today and confirmed that the address is not listed as offering Jefferson County cable service. But this one fix of his isn’t going to make the company’s subsidy-blocking strategy go awry. That’s because the FCC map says the company serves the address next door and another address on the same street.
False data hits subsidy-seeking ISPs
Fake broadband data can directly harm Smart Way, as ISPs plan to apply for grants to upgrade their networks. With over one million challenges submitted to the FCC across the United States, it’s unclear how many errors there are across the map.
The new FCC maps are to show exactly which homes and businesses have access to Internet services and what types of services are available at each address. Using that data, the U.S. government and states determine how to allocate federal funds to projects that fill gaps in broadband availability.
However, Maps relies on your Internet Service Provider to report where it is served, resulting in an error indicating that your ISP claims to serve more homes than it actually does. is rampant. Nevada officials say he found more than 20,000 errors in their state alone. A Vermont official said the map “misses or misrepresents more than 60,000 broadband-serviceable locations,” adding that “the state discovered through mapping and , describes levels of service availability that far exceed what we are hearing from residents.”
If you would like to submit a challenge, you can search for reported broadband availability for a particular address here and use that page to submit your challenge. In addition to individual submissions, state governments and broadband-focused groups have submitted a ton of challenges.
Grewell said he filed about a dozen complaints in late November, most of which involved addresses allegedly provided by Jefferson County Cable. He said he submitted “challenges in areas where I knew there was no fiber in the house at all.”
Loveridge or Jefferson County Cable did not respond to requests for comment. However, after Grewell’s challenge, Jefferson County Cable dropped its coverage claim at one of his addresses referenced in Loveridge’s emails.
In a January 12 email notice, the FCC said, “The provider that is the subject of your dispute has granted the dispute. You have 30 days to correct the disputed location on the online portal. must be submitted.
Despite that one success, Grewell said yesterday he had not received a response to any of the other addresses he challenged. As mentioned above, a successful challenge at one address did not trigger a map update to nearby homes.
