In September we released our updated map pinpointing the location of the 400 municipally owned Internet service providers now serving almost 800 communities across the United States.

Today, we unveil our predictive map which was created by our Senior GIS Analyst Christine Parker.

The map provides a multi-layered look into the near future of community broadband networks.

It not only shows where existing community-owned fiber networks are located but also highlights how those networks will expand in the coming years based on formally announced plans and secured funding to complete network builds.

A few things to note about the map (below at bottom):

• The map only shows community-owned fiber networks.

   

• The darkest shaded layers show the footprint that is already built representing data from the FCC's Broadband Data Collection.

   

• Lighter shaded layers show the footprint that has not been built yet but where federal funding has been secured to expand, based on the FCC’s Broadband Funding Map.

   

At their core, maps are about using data to tell a story. And we may be biased, but we love a good map about the Internet around here. Hexes, polygons, availability maps: they're all equally good. Whether in service to educating the public, or making a policy point, or helping local leaders make more informed choices as they work for the collective good, maps can be a powerful tool.

Every year since 2018, mapping gurus from the United States and around the world have come together to have some fun by putting together 30 maps in 30 days. Different types of maps and conceptual frameworks invite both builders and viewers to look at the world in new ways, and have some fun along the way.

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ILSR is joining in this year, and throughout the month of November we'll be releasing a new map every day showing featuring Internet infrastructure and digital equity in news ways. See the categories above. 

Every day we'll publish a new map about the Internet, and post them to our StoryMaps page. The first is already live: showing mobile wireless towers in and around Phoenix, Arizona, that have been disguised to look like something else.

Got an idea for a map we should make? Email is at [email protected].

P.S. Maps about the Internet are nothing new: Vox collected 40 Maps About the Internet all the way back in 2014 (my favorites are numbers 8, 18, and 32).

In 2011, we built our first map showing where community-owned networks were located across the United States. At the time, it aimed to illustrate what we knew to be true: that more than 100 communities were choosing to fill the local broadband marketplace by building and/or operating their own networks.

The goal was twofold: to highlight the work local governments were doing to fix the broken broadband market in their communities, and collect in one place the breadth,  depth, and variety of community-owned networks. Over time, we added Tribal networks, and those operated by telephone and electric cooperatives.

Today we release a new version of our Community Networks Map, showing where municipal networks operate across the United States and how they are bringing new, more affordable service and competition to communities around the country. From 130 networks covering a similar number of communities in 2011, the new map shows that municipally owned Internet service providers now total more than 400 networks covering more than 700 communities. A third of those networks provide high-speed Internet access to nearly every address in the communities where they are located.

Last Friday was a major milestone in the process of moving $42.5 billion from the federal government to states to distribute mostly to rural areas to build new, modern Internet access networks. January 13th marked the deadline for error corrections (called challenges) to the official national map that will be used to determine how much each state will get. 

As an organization that has worked in nearly all 50 states over the past 20 years on policies to improve Internet access, we spent the last few weeks struggling to understand what was actually at stake and wondering if we were alone in being confused about the process. Despite the stakes, almost no expert we talked to actually understood which challenges – if any – would fix errors in the map data before it was used to allocate the largest single federal broadband investment in history. 

Update: On January 13th, Joan Engebretson confirmed in Telecompetitor that the location challenges deadline was October 30, 2022, and not Jan 13, 2023.

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This article will explore what is going wrong with the distribution of that $42.5 billion, the mapping process, and continued failure of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to show competence in the broadband arena. And it offers ways to fix these important problems as every jurisdiction from Puerto Rico to Hawaii feels overwhelmed by the challenge.