Tyler Cooper

Progress on gigabit deployment in the US has been greatly exaggerated. This is true for the state of the internet in general. However, the gigabit landscape is a subsection worth examining more closely, as it is the connectivity threshold that will be required to solve the speed and functionality divides of the near future. The Federal Communications Commission claims that gigabit availability has ballooned from 4% in 2016 to 84% in 2020. Our own estimates, however, show that gigabit plan access has actually gone from 2.4% in the same year to 56% in 2020.

Key Findings

Key findings:

Our two most recent reports seemed to indicate that networks were slowly adjusting to the newfound demand being placed on them, but this week, these improvements have, in some cases, slowed to a crawl:

For the past three weeks, our team has been tracking internet performance in hundreds of American cities amid the coronavirus pandemic. Last week, we expanded our analysis to include rural America, as well as adding in data on upload speeds, which have been central to the discussion around working (and learning) from home. Key findings:

How are networks are holding up in the top 200 cities? We’ve compared the median download speeds internet users have been experiencing for the week of March 15th – March 21st to the range of speeds experienced in prior weeks of 2020. Key findings:

As millions of users vacate dedicated business connections in favor of their home connection, providers are seeing a significant surge in virtually every state. Are these residential networks holding up? Or are they choking on the increased demand being placed on them? Here’s what the data tells us: 

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.

A data-driven series examining the state of broadband deployment in the US throughout the 2010’s, as well as a look ahead to where and how advanced deployment technologies will affect our progress looking out to the next decade. From 2010 to 2020, Americans with access to broadband internet increased from an estimated 74.5 percent to 93.5 percent. ome states have seen greater improvement in broadband availability over the last ten years than others. Montana saw the greatest improvement, with broadband availability increasing from 11% to 86% between 2010 and 2020 – a 652% growth rate.

In 2013, 17 percent of consumers in both China and the US had access to a fiber internet connection. Fast forward to 2019, China’s penetration has jumped to 86 percent while the US is only at 25 percent. While America continues to suffer from an immense digital divide, China’s government has made incredible progress building out a state-sponsored super network of fiber optic connections. Despite the constant posturing and discussion about the importance of fiber, the US has not been effective at deploying a nationwide fiber optical network. Why is this?