Rural broadband is about to get $600 million in funding—but there’s a catch

But with all the hubbub and activity, there’s also a sneaky public records exemption tucked into the farm bill that broadband advocates say is bad public policy. According to the text of the bill, which is waiting to be signed into law by President Trump, when USDA’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS) 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 (FOIA) disclosure, according to the bill. 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.

Telecommunications advocates and consultants I contacted, including Ernesto Falcon, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit digital rights group, could not recall another example of FOIA exemption for companies submitting coverage maps.

“This provision is a surprise,” he said.

What’s the value in preventing the public from seeing where service providers claim they already have coverage? I contacted several lobbies representing companies that have pursued or received federal funding for rural broadband to find out.

In an email statement, Claude Aiken, president of the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association, which represents small companies that beam connections from transmitters on cell towers and other elevated places, says that, while he appreciates “Congress’s recognition that competitively sensitive information should not be publicly available,” he also wants “to ensure that transparency and accountability are the hallmarks of any government funding program, and do not support an exemption that would be used to undermine those values.”

Other companies I contacted to ask how the provision benefits or harms their members—including the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association; NTCA, The Rural Broadband Association; ITTA, The Voice of America’s Broadband Providers; USTelecom; and the American Cable Association—did not offer comment by press time.

An internet company’s service area is generally considered proprietary information, and does not have to be shared with the public. Instead, providers submit information to FCC about the census blocks and tracts where they have advertised coverage to at least one location. As I’ve previously reported, there are major discrepancies between those data and actual coverage on the ground.