Update: Comparing the New FCC Fabric to the Census

The Federal Communications Commission released a file that contains the number of “units” (usually housing units) in the  Broadband Serviceable Location Fabric (Fabric). There are 158 million “units” in the Fabric and 140 million housing units in the 2020 Census. In the least dense 2,143 counties, there are 30 million “units” in the Fabric and 24.5 million Census housing units. As counties get more rural, the Fabric increasingly has more locations than the Census. In the least dense counties, the Fabric routinely has 40% more locations than the Census. We hear a lot about missing locations in the Fabric; we don’t hear as much about over-reported locations.