AT&T Hopes You’ll Forget Its Years-Long Fight Against Accurate Broadband Maps

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:

AT&T hopes you'll forget its years-long fight against accurate broadband maps;:

AT&T CEO John Stankey this week published an opinion piece in Politico with the apparent goals of improving AT&T's reputation, reducing government regulation, and getting more federal funding. The piece is titled, "A Game Plan to-Finally-Connect Every American to Broadband," and the first item on AT&T's game plan is "to identify where broadband is unavailable with geographic precision."

[...] Why doesn't the United States already have broadband maps with this level of precision? Partly because AT&T and other ISPs have repeatedly fought the Federal Communications Commission's attempts to require submission of more accurate maps.

AT&T may have recognized that its fight against more accurate broadband maps is largely over, with Stankey's Politico essay noting Congress' passage of the Broadband DATA Act-and urging Congress to hurry up in appropriating funding. But even with the Broadband DATA Act mentioned by Stankey, AT&T is still pushing for limits on how the FCC implements the data-collection system mandated by Congress.

[...] The FCC, which is still finalizing its plan, has good reason to ask for more data to verify carrier submissions. In April, AT&T admitted a mistake in which it falsely reported offering broadband in nearly 3,600 census blocks spread across parts of 20 states. Separately, the FCC found in December that Verizon, T-Mobile, and US Cellular exaggerated their 4G coverage in official filings. These types of mistakes can prevent the FCC from targeting funding to the areas where it's most needed, and inaccurate data in general can result in ISPs giving potential customers false information about service availability.

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