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Verizon's new maps show up on the FCC's website.

April 7, 2017 by Kimberly Parks

Verizon's new maps show up on the FCC's website.

The maps are being used to determine the amount of funding required to expand the 4G LTE coverage in many rural areas, including part of the Southwest.

"While the FCC has not yet confirmed whether a map was requested, that's not the point of this case," said Adam T. Cohen, a lawyer with the Public Knowledge Project.

The FCC does not require broadband providers to maintain maps of their coverage in rural areas, but that information would help it determine which is the best option for consumers.

"This will help the FCC determine what the best way to fund this program is," said Cohen. "What the FCC has done in this case is to have the map used to determine which carriers will have enough money to implement the 4G LTE service in areas where they have no competition."

"It's also important for consumers as well to know that you're not paying as much for the coverage as you can tell and that's important to know in this case," said Jonathan A. Cohen, an attorney who specializes in rural issues. "It's also important for the consumer to know that that is a common practice in the U.S. and that's what the Commission is doing now."

The maps will be presented to the FCC's Subcommittee on Rural Health by mid-October, Cohen said.The United States will not sign up for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) despite having ratified it in a referendum in 2015, the U.S. Trade Representative told a House subcommittee on trade.

"No TPP is better than the current administration's TPP, which is an attempt to make the United States more competitive in the global economy," said Michael Froman Jr., the head of the House Trade Representative's Trade Subcommittee. "We will not sign NAFTA, despite knowing that Mexico and Canada are committed to building up trade with the United States and supporting American businesses."

"The TPP has been a great success for the United States, but our country is not going to continue to become a global power by doing this," he added.

The House panel's recommendation was issued in a letter submitted last year by former US Trade Representative Anthony Navarro, who served as a member of the House Subcommittee on Trade for 10 years before being appointed to the Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Trade and Industry.

The USTR's letter is the latest in a continuing series of demands the USTR has made after the US Department of Commerce proposed the Trans-