CHARLESTON — U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said Thursday that new broadband maps published in November still leave much to be desired. 

Speaking Thursday during a virtual briefing with reporters from her Capitol Hill office, Capito said new FCC broadband maps still show parts of the West Virginia having service when service in those areas is either sub-par or non-existent. 

“The FCC has just published recently … broadband maps that actually show which parts of West Virginia have service, which homes have service and which don’t,” Capito, R-W.Va., said. “I feel that they have some pretty grave mistakes. What would that impact? It would impact our ability to get larger funding to extend to unserved and underserved areas.” 

The FCC released drafts of its new broadband maps Nov. 18. While previous maps used U.S. Census block data to determine the level of internet service across the country, the new maps drill down to more specific areas. 

“Our pre-production draft maps are a first step in a long-term effort to continuously improve our data as consumers, providers and others share information with us,” said FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel in a statement. “By painting a more accurate picture of where broadband is and is not, local, state, and federal partners can better work together to ensure no one is left on the wrong side of the digital divide.” 

Capito encouraged West Virginia residents to visit broadbandmap.fcc.gov/home, input their home addresses into the search bar, and see whether the information provided by the FCC for their broadband access is accurate. If the information isn’t accurate, residents can challenge the broadband availability so that the FCC can improve their maps. 

“We are doing outreach to all our citizens to look at these maps through the FCC and determine, by putting your address in, how it’s saying what kind of service you have,” Capito said. “If it says you are fully served or have access but you don’t, then we need to know that so we can dispute the maps. It’s within the rights of citizens to dispute the maps if they’re incorrect. We really need to do that, because that will impact how much funding we have.” 

An example of bad mapping Capito pointed to involves more than 130,000 homes in West Virginia showing access to broadband through Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet service. But due to West Virginia’s mountainous landscape, Capito said Starlink is not a reliable source of broadband for those homes. 

“Where we are running into problems is about 130,000 homes in West Virginia we think were left off of the maps,” Capito said. “We think one of the reasons is they’re showing it being served by (Starlink), and their service is non-existent, it’s spotty, and it’s very expensive. To me, that’s an underserved or unserved area. Those are the kinds of disputes we need to make because it will affect funding and we won’t get to that last home if we don’t have the accurate maps.” 

Capito has been working with the West Virginia Broadband Enhancement Council, which released its own interactive broadband map in 2020 to more accurately determine underserved and unserved parts of the state. 

The state is expected to receive $100 million for broadband expansion through the $1.2 billion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed by Congress last November and negotiated by Capito and U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. Capito said accurate maps are needed to ensure the state doesn’t lose out on needed broadband expansion funding. 

“The infrastructure bill that I voted for last year had tremendous amounts of funding that’s first supposed to go to unserved and underserved areas,” Capito said. “In order for us to access the greatest amount of dollars to get to those difficult places in our state, we need to make sure we have an accurate count of how many homes are left unserved and underserved.”