Cumberland Mayor Seeking Community Help To Accurately Report Internet Access

Cumberland County Mayor Allen Foster asking residents to challenge the accuracy of the FCC broadband maps.

Internet providers make up the map by reporting where services are or are not available. Foster said in the past, the county has been negatively impacted by inaccurate data.

“The current map that they are using before this one was horribly wrong,” Foster said. “It was showing most of our county being serviced with broadband when we knew for a fact that was not accurate at all.”

Foster said internet providers and counties use the data to determine broadband grant eligibility. Foster said the more residents that challenge the map means more opportunities to expand broadband to their area.

Foster said the previous map would mark an entire census block as broadband covered as long as one address had internet access. Foster said this caused broadband access to be vastly over reported in Cumberland County.

Foster said the FCC has made changes this year to hopefully prevent the issue.