First look: Summary of the New FCC Broadband Maps

Overall, there are 112 million Broadband Serviceable Locations (BSLs) in the country (excluding territories). Of those, 7.15% of the BSLs are Unserved, which is 8 million. 5.2% of the BSLs are Underserved, or 5.8 million nationally. The Unserved and Underserved numbers provided are how I expect the calculation to be done for the BEAD program: it excludes LEO satellite service and also excludes service provided over unlicensed fixed wireless. It’s important to remember that the denominator in these calculations is BSLs, not housing units. BSLs include small businesses. Also, a single BSL could be an apartment building with many housing units in it, or a building of condos or townhouses that are 1 BSL but have multiple housing units. 112 million BSLs seems reasonable, given that there are 140 million housing units in the 2020 Census. 13.85 million unserved and underserved BSLs surprises on the low side, if anything. Consensus estimates were unserved and underserved at 21-23 million housing units (remembering again the different denominator between BSLs and housing units).