The Broadband Availability Gap

The Federal Communications Commission has released a new staff technical paper detailing the methodology and model used to determine that 14 million Americans in 7 million homes do not have access to broadband service offering actual download speeds of 4 Mbps and actual upload speeds of 1 Mbps -- and estimating it will cost approximately $24 billion to provide broadband access to these homes.

While complicated, the model essentially does two things. First, it estimates the areas of the country in which 4/1 Mbps is not likely to be available in the next several years. The approach uses public and commercial data and relies in part on a statistical model to estimate the availability of broadband in every census block in the country. This analysis focuses on the capabilities of the "last-mile" infrastructure (the access network), not on either subscribership or retail offerings. Second, it estimates the cost of bringing 4/1 Mbps to those unserved areas and the revenues that could be earned by doing so. In doing so, it is conservative and technology-neutral. The FCC only modeled technologies -- wireless, cable, satellite, and DSL -- that are commercially-deployed today or will be in the near future. We wanted the model to inform practical solutions, not rely on promises of future breakthroughs.