FCC Releases New Data on Internet Access Services

This report summarizes information about Internet access connections over 200 kilobits per second (kbps) in at least one direction in service in the United States on December 31, 2011, as collected by FCC Form 477.

Form 477 gathers standardized information about subscribership to Internet access services in the fifty states, District of Columbia, and inhabited insular areas (American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Virgin Islands). The information is reported by telephone companies, cable system operators, terrestrial wireless service providers, satellite service providers, and other facilities-based providers of advanced telecommunications capability. This is the seventh report to include details about subscribership differences among census tracts and counties, as well as subscribership differences among the states.

Notable developments between December 2010 and December 2011 include:

• Internet connections overall are growing. The number of connections over 200 kbps in at least one direction increased by 27% year-over-year to 230 million.
• Growth is particularly high in mobile Internet subscriptions, but fixed-location connections also continue to increase. The number of mobile subscriptions grew to 142 million – up 46% from December 2010. The number of fixed-location connections increased by 4% year-over-year, to 88 million.
• Both fixed and mobile services are shifting to higher speeds. The share of fixed connections with download speeds at or above 3 Mbps and upload speeds at or above 768 kbps increased from 53% to 58% of total fixed connections. Among mobile wireless subscriptions, the share increased from 11% to 22%.
• Despite the strong growth of total mobile connections, fixed connections continued to dominate among those connections with higher download and upload speeds.