Analyzing the June 2021 FCC Form 477 data release

The Federal Communications Commission released Form 477 data as of June 30, 2021. The top lines of the release are: 3.6 million housing units (as of 2019 projections) unserved by 25/3 broadband, which is 2.55 percent of the 141 million housing units nationally. That’s a small 13 basis point decrease from 2.68 percent unserved in the December 2020 release. Underserved stands at 5.3 percent, down from 6.4 percent in the December 2020 release. The first reaction is, “wow, these numbers are lower than I thought”. As we all know, these numbers understate the real number of housing units that are lacking broadband because they count partially served census blocks as completely served. When the FCC releases the new broadband maps, they’ll be at the location level and therefore illuminate the partially served census blocks. The understated release from the FCC is notable to me. Instead of crowing about how small the numbers are (as was done with the previous FCC), the FCC just put them out without any fanfare. How the new maps, which will be as of June 30, 2022, compared to these maps will be very interesting.