FCC Reports Broadband Unavailable to 21.3 Million Americans, BroadbandNow Study Indicates 42 Million Do Not Have Access

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:

• 9 large broadband service providers were selected with “check availability” tools. These tools allow users to enter an address and receive a response as to whether wired and/or fixed wireless service is available.
• 11,663 addresses (from a set of more than 1 million) where at least one of these nine providers offer service were selected.
• Each address/provider combination was checked. BroadbandNow found that for 19.6 percent of combinations, the provider’s tool indicates service is not available.
• Some addresses are serviced by more than one of the nine large providers according to FCC data. For 13.0 percent of addresses, none of the ISPs’ tools indicate service is available.
• FCC data shows that approximately half of these addresses are also served by one or more local or hyper-local broadband providers (the US has more than 2,000 of these). BroadbandNow was not able to check availability for local ISPs and therefore conservatively assumed that residents of these addresses could receive broadband.
• In total, BroadbandNow estimates that 42 million Americans do not have the ability to purchase broadband internet. This is an additional 6.5 percent of Americans beyond FCC estimates.

FCC overreporting disproportionately impacts rural communities. As an example, in South Carolina, where 50 percent of residents live in an urban area, unserved addresses are 30 percent higher than FCC estimates. Compare that to Arizona, where 90 percent of residents live in an urban area and unserved addresses are 11 percent higher.