Data & Mapping

On December 31, 2024, Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel released a note reflecting on the agency's work over the course of 2024. "The end of the year is always a time for reflection," Chairwoman Rosenworcel said. "That’s especially true for me in 2024 as my service at the Federal Communications Commission is coming to a close. It has been the honor of a lifetime to serve in this role and a special privilege to be the first woman confirmed to do so." The Chairwoman categorized her time at the FCC into five core values:

We supposedly have a decent handle these days of the number of locations that can buy broadband due to the Federal Communications Commission broadband mapping and data collection effort. While some folks will argue about the accuracy of the FCC's National Broadband Map, we know a lot more than we did just a few years ago. The map is supposed to disclose where internet service providers (ISPs) are capable of serving, but not where they have customers.

The Technology Policy Institute announced the launch of a first-of-its-kind 

The Broadband Data Task Force announces that the sixth Broadband Data Collection (BDC) filing window for submitting broadband availability and other data as of December 31, 2024, will open on January 2, 2025. In addition, the December 2024 update of the Broadband Serviceable Location Fabric (Fabric) is being made available to existing Fabric licensees in advance of the opening of the window.

The Federal Communications Commission announced the launch of a major update to the Mapping Broadband Health in America platform, expanding its capacity to analyze the intersection of broadband connectivity and a range of critical health outcomes, including new variables to better examine maternal health.

In 2022, President Joe Biden (D-DE) signed the Data Mapping to Save Moms' Lives Act, which directs the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to “incorporate publicly available data on maternal mortality and severe maternal morbidity into the agency’s Mapping Broadband Health in America platform, in consultation with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” The bipartisan bill was introduced in 2021 by Sens.

As a country we have a very short memory when it comes to broadband. Anybody in their late 40s or older clearly remembers twenty-five years ago when the predominant form of broadband was dial-up and we were seeing the first DSL and cable modem trials in the market. But I think most people have forgotten about the state of broadband just ten years ago. We’ve made extraordinary strides with broadband speeds in just ten years. Cable companies now routinely offer gigabit speeds and millions of new fiber passings are being built every year.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently released the 5th version of the National Broadband Map, with data as of June 2024. At a high level, the trend continues of fewer and fewer unserved and underserved locations: in the previous version, 8.8 million locations were unserved or unserved. Now, with six months more data, we’re down to 7.5 million locations needing better broadband service. That’s an 15 percent decrease over one six-month period.

When it comes to broadband usage growth rates, downstream is down and upstream is up. While the total volume of downstream and upstream usage continues to climb, the 3Q24 edition of the OpenVault Broadband Insights (OVBI) report indicates a continuation of a trend that OpenVault analysis has identified throughout the modern broadband era: With the exception of the pandemic year of 2020, downstream growth rates have slowed each year, while the rate of increase in the upstream has trended steadily upward.