Lumen’s Digital Disparity: Underinvestment in Infrastructure and Discrimination

Lumen Technologies is worsening the digital divide and failing its customers and workers by not investing adequately in the essential fiber-optic buildout that is the standard for broadband networks worldwide. An analysis of Lumen’s network in states where the company has more than 100,000 households in its service area, interviews with Lumen technicians, and reports by customers in Lumen’s service area show that its service in large parts of its footprint is below the Federal Communications Commission’s broadband definition of 25/3 Mbps and demonstrates Lumen’s failure to build fiber to much of its service area. This analysis also found that:

• Thirty-nine percent of households in Lumen’s footprint do not have access to speeds that meet the FCC’s definition of broadband.
• This underinvestment is especially devastating for rural communities, which make up more than half (57 percent) of the counties in the Lumen footprint and struggle with access to essential broadband services.
• The median income for households with fiber available is 12 percent higher than in areas with DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) service only. The median income of households with access to fiber is $62,649, while the median income of households with only access to DSL is $56,123.
• The company targets wealthy areas--42 percent of households with access to fiber are in census blocks with median incomes above $75,000--while leaving behind lower income areas, with only 7 percent of Lumen’s fiber network in census blocks with median incomes below $35,000.
• In counties with higher populations of Native Americans (more than 25 percent of households) only about 5.2 percent have access to fiber-to-the-home service and 50 percent only have DSL access.