An update on the state of broadband competition in the US

The Federal Communications Commission's new broadband maps give us a view of what the broadband competition situation is in the United States. We want to answer the question of how many options a household has for broadband service. Using the new maps, and a 100 Mbps download and 20 upload throughput as the threshold for acceptable broadband, 37% of households have access to one offering, 34% have access to two offerings, and 18% have access to three or more offerings. This is slightly more concentration than was present in the most recent Form 477 data. In that data, as of June 30, 2021, 21% of households had access to 3+ offerings, 36% had access to 2 offerings, and 34% had access to only one. In each case, the new maps show a few percentage points less competition than the Form 477 data. This is the expected direction of movement: in the old maps if two providers evenly split a Census block, the block appeared to have two offerings; now it will show that every house has access to only one or the other single offering.