NTIA: 18% of Rural Communities Lack 3 Mbps Broadband

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration has done a highly detailed analysis of broadband deployment in the U.S. -– looking at broadband availability by speed, by technology, by state, by county, and by various combinations of these factors. The upshot, the NTIA said, is that although the U.S. continues to make progress on broadband deployment and speeds, gaps between rural and metro areas persist.

The report notes, for example, that almost 100% of urban residents have access to download speeds of at least 6 Mbps but only 82% of rural communities can access these speeds. And while almost 88% of urban residents have access to speeds of 25 Mbps, only 41% of rural residents have the same access. One of the most interesting charts in the report was one showing the percentage of counties where people can get broadband at various speeds ranging from basic 3 Mbps downstream service to high-speed 100 Mbps downstream service. In the chart, reproduced here, each speed level has a low and a high mark. The high mark shows the percentage of counties where 25% of the population can get broadband at a certain speed, while the low mark shows the percentage of counties where 95% of the population can get service at that speed. The chart shows, for example, that 5% of the people in 41% of U.S. counties lack even basic 3 Mbps broadband. And 75% of the people in just under 2% of U.S. counties lack broadband at that speed. At the 6 Mbps level, 5% of the people in 62% of U.S. counties cannot get service. And 75% of the people in 4.5% of U.S. counties can’t get 6 Mbps broadband.