Julia Tanberk

In 2020, we manually checked availability of more than 11,000 addresses using Federal Communications Commission Form 477 data as the “source of truth.” Based on the results, we estimated that 42 million Americans do not have the ability to purchase broadband internet. In 2021, we expanded our study, manually checking availability of terrestrial broadband internet (wired or fixed wireless) for more than 58,000 addresses. In all, we checked more than 110,000 address-provider combinations using the FCC Form 477 data as the “source of truth”.

Access to low-priced broadband internet has increased significantly over the last year.  For the first time, more than 3 of 4 of Americans (77%) have access to low-priced wired broadband plans compared to 50% in 2020 Q1.  A low-priced broadband plan costs $60 per month or less (excluding promotional pricing), and has minimum speeds of 25 Mbps download / 3 Mbps upload. Low-priced plans are not as common at higher speeds.

In the fourth quarter of 2020, many broadband internet service providers introduced or expanded low-priced broadband plans, which the authors define as $60 or less per month, resulting in 70% of Americans having access to low-priced internet at speeds of 25 mbps download / 3 mbps upload and 30% at the higher threshold of 100 mbps download / 25 upload. Ninety-four ISPs added low-priced plans that were not available in Q3. National providers, such as CenturyLink and Xfinity were among them. Just 52% of Americans had access to low-priced plans in the fourth quarter of 2019.

Key Findings

Key findings:

New Jersey ranks highest overall in the nation with 98% wired broadband coverage and 78% low-priced plan availability. Alaska ranks lowest overall, with 61% wired and fixed wireless broadband coverage and no low-priced (wired) plan availability. Despite being the 2nd largest state by population, Texas came in 8th overall for broadband availability and pricing. California, the largest state, came in 13th place. Affordable wired internet is most widely available in Rhode Island, where 89% of the population has access to a broadband plan $60 or under.

BroadbandNow Research manually checked broadband availability of more than 11,000 addresses using Federal Communications Commission Form 477 data and estimates that 42 million Americans do not have the ability to purchase broadband internet. The FCC's Broadband Deployment Report states that 21.3 million Americans, or 6.5 percent of the population, lack access to broadband internet, including wired and fixed wireless connections. Here’s what we did and how BroadbandNow arrived at this estimate: