USDA's ReConnect Shields Incumbent Coverage Data

President Trump on Dec. 20 signed the farm bill. And, as with most things in politics, this is a good news, bad news story – at least as it relates to broadband.

The Upside

The good news is the new legislation earmarks up to $600 million in grant and loan money to fund rural broadband. The United States Department of Agriculture will disperse the money through the ReConnect pilot broadband program.

Internet service providers, municipalities, rural electric cooperatives and utilities, and telecommunications companies can apply for the funding. Their applications must be for efforts aimed at serving communities with fewer than 20,000 people with no broadband service or where service is slower than 10mbps downstream and 1mbps upstream. Winning broadband applicants will create networks that deliver 25mbps or greater download and 3mbps or higher upload speeds, and that cater to e-commerce, education, farm, health care, and home applications.

The Downside

The bad news is the law allows incumbent network operators to keep their broadband coverage areas under wraps. And some sources say that can work against municipalities that want to build their own broadband networks.

One report on the matter says “when USDA’s Rural Utilities Service receives a funding application for ReConnect or any other broadband program, other service providers have the opportunity to submit maps that show where coverage would be ‘coterminous,’ or overlapping. If the area is already covered, the agency could reject the application. That’s not unusual. But this is: Information regarding that area of overlap—in other words, the area that an incumbent provider says it already covers—is exempt from Freedom of Information Act disclosure…. That means a prospective provider could lose an application but wouldn’t be able to compel the government to share the data behind the rejection.” The report adds that municipalities are often sued for building broadband networks that duplicate carrier coverage, at least in part. If those municipalities can access incumbent coverage records, it adds, they may have to spend excessive amounts of time and money on research to defend themselves in court.