The FCC released the second of its twice-yearly data on broadband availability on October 29, showing data as of December, 2020. The data, which are available at the Census Block level, show a continued increase in availability and speeds. TPI’s Broadband Map incorporated the new data as soon as the FCC released it.
Highlights of the new data:
- The share of households with access to 25/3, 100/20, and 100/100 all increased by about one percentage point from June 2020 to December 2020.
- The median of the maximum available download speeds across counties increased from about 695 Mbps in June 2020 to about 740 Mbps in December 2020.
- The median of the maximum available upload speeds across counties increased from about 131 Mbps in June 2020 to about 155 Mbps in December 2020.
Figure 1 shows changes in the share of households with broadband availability at different speeds.
Figure 1: Share of households with access to speed tiers over time
Figure 2 shows a time-lapse of increases in 25/3 availability across the country, Figure 3 shows a time-lapse of increases in 100/20 availability, and Figures 4 – 6 show the share of households with access to 25/3, 100/20, and 100/100 by congressional district as of December 2020.
figure 2: change in access to 25/3 service across states, December 2015 – December 2020
figure 3: change in access to 100/20 service across states, December 2015 – December 2020
figure 4: share of households with access to 25/3 by congressional district, december 2020
figure 5: share of households with access to 100/20 by congressional district, december 2020
FIGURE 6: SHARE OF HOUSEHOLDS WITH ACCESS TO 100/100 BY CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT, DECEMBER 2020
Similarly, available speeds continue to increase, as well (Figure 7).
figure 7: median available maximum download and upload speeds over time
caveats
As is widely understood, the nature of the Form 477 data means that it overstates availability. The main cause of this issue is that a Census Block is considered to be served by an ISP if the ISP has at least one customer in the Block. Thus, Census Blocks in which few people have coverage are considered covered in this data. The FCC’s new broadband fabric data is one attempt to address this issue.
The implication is that the share of households with coverage and maximum available speeds stated here as calculated from the 477 data are too high. Still, this problem should not affect trends, and the data show broadband in the U.S. continuing to improve.
Scott Wallsten is President and Senior Fellow at the Technology Policy Institute and also a senior fellow at the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy. He is an economist with expertise in industrial organization and public policy, and his research focuses on competition, regulation, telecommunications, the economics of digitization, and technology policy. He was the economics director for the FCC's National Broadband Plan and has been a lecturer in Stanford University’s public policy program, director of communications policy studies and senior fellow at the Progress & Freedom Foundation, a senior fellow at the AEI – Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, an economist at The World Bank, a scholar at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, and a staff economist at the U.S. President’s Council of Economic Advisers. He holds a PhD in economics from Stanford University.
