Internet Access Services: Status as of December 31, 2016

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This report summarizes information about Internet access connections in the United States as of December 31, 2016 as collected by FCC Form 477. For purposes of this report, Internet access connections are those in service, over 200 kilobits per second (kbps) in at least one direction, and reported to the FCC through Form 477. The report includes data on total and residential Internet access connections by downstream and upstream speed, by technology, by geography, and over time. Section 2 of the report presents nationwide statistics, Section 3 provides state-level data, and Section 4 includes data on the subscribership differences among counties and census tracts.2 In addition, Section 5 of the report includes an analysis of the correlations between subscribership ratios and various demographic measures.3 Maps depicting the number of fixed connections per 1,000 households by census tract and the number of fixed providers by census block are available online at https://www.fcc.gov/reports-research/reports/internet-access-services-re...

  • The total number of Internet connections increased by about 6% between December 2015 and December 2016 to 376 million.
  • Most of the growth in total Internet connections is attributable to increased mobile Internet access subscribership. The number of mobile Internet connections increased 7% year-over-year to 270 million in December 2016, while the number of fixed connections grew to 106 million – up about 3% from December 2015.

Internet Access Services: Status as of December 31, 2016