An Assessment of the “All-In” Assumption for FCC 477 Data

Until recently, the only source for broadband availability data was the Form 477 data collected (since 2014) by the Federal Communications Commission. These data are collected by the FCC from broadband providers at the census block level (averaging about 20 homes). Under an “all-in” assumption, a census block is deemed to have broadband (at a specified speed threshold) if a provider serves (or could serve in a few months) a single location within the block. This assumption tends, of course, to overstate broadband availability. As a result, the Form 477 data have been heavily criticized for doing so and likened to “fake news.” Importantly, there are at least two sorts of errors in the Form 477 approach of policy relevance. First, there is the issue of overstating the total availability of broadband service at an aggregate level (e.g., state or nation). Second, there is the question of the quality of data to identify the exact location of unserved locations. The latter is more significant since it may affect where subsidy dollars are spent, while the former speaks mostly to a general distrust of the data in general policy debates. When the Form 477 data are analyzed at the state level, the analysis finds that the overstatement is small—less than 4 percentage points. Criticisms of these high-level statistics, therefore, are somewhat overblown. Still, if one wants to know the exact locations without broadband service availability, then the consequences of Form 477’s “all-in” assumption can be severe.