Data & Mapping

The Federal Communications Commission begins its latest annual statutorily-mandated assessment of its progress in closing the digital divide. In the 2020 Broadband Deployment Report, the FCC concluded that for the third consecutive year such advanced telecommunications capabilities are being timely deployed. While the 2020 Report acknowledged there is still work to be done to fully close the digital divide, more Americans than ever before now have access to the benefits of broadband as the FCC’s policies have created a regulatory environment to stimulate broadband investment and deployment.

Governor Gavin Newsom (D-CA) announced that every eligible local educational agency in California has applied for and is receiving a portion of the $5.3 billion in learning loss mitigation funds secured through the state budget he signed in June. The Governor also signed an executive order directing state agencies across government to bridge the digital divide, building on the state’s efforts to provide computing devices and hotspots to students across the state. The order directs agencies to pursue a goal of 100 Mbps download speed.

In anticipation of conducting future Internet Use Surveys, NTIA is seeking recommendations from the public about how we can improve our survey and make it as relevant as possible. Are there questions we previously asked that should be changed or deleted? Are there any questions that we should be adding?

The coronavirus pandemic has revealed many hard truths, and one of them is our nation’s digital divide. In Illinois, the Office of Broadband, through its Connect Illinois broadband program, is working to ensure broadband use by everyone in the state.

The largest cable and telephone providers in the US – representing about 96% of the market – acquired about 1,245,000 net additional broadband Internet subscribers in the second quarter of 2020, compared to a pro forma gain of about 375,000 subscribers in 2Q 2019. These top broadband providers now account for about 103.3 million subscribers, with top cable companies having 70.6 million broadband subscribers, and top wireline phone companies having 32.7 million subscribers. The top cable companies added about 1,400,000 subscribers in 2Q 2020. The top wireline phone companies had a net loss o

The 2020 edition of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance's Profiles of Monopoly: Big Cable and Telecom report analyzes the latest data available from the Federal Communications Commission to investigate broadband competition in communities across the country. Thanks largely to the power of monopoly corporations like Comcast, Charter, and AT&T, millions of Americans still do not have a real choice when it comes to their Internet service.

I work with communities all of the time that want to know if they are unserved or underserved by broadband. I've started to tell them to toss away those two terms, which is not a good way to think about broadband today. The main reason to scrap these terms is that they convey the idea that 25/3 Mbps broadband ought to be an acceptable target speed for building new broadband. Urban America has moved far beyond the kinds of broadband speeds that are being discussed as acceptable for rural broadband. Cable companies now have minimum speeds that vary between 100 Mbps and 200 Mbps.

Three states have recently kickstarted their own broadband surveys — Washington, North Carolina and Alabama.

The Federal Communications Commission released an updated version of its FCC Speed Test app to evaluate how well customers' mobile broadband connections are performing. This app, available from the Apple App Store and Google Play, has been updated to work the with latest versions of the iOS and Android operating systems. Like its predecessor, the updated app allows users to test their cellular and Wi-Fi network performance for download and upload speed, latency, jitter, and packet loss.

The Washington State Broadband Office and state Public Works Board have launched a mapping initiative to identify gaps in high-speed internet service and areas of broadband infrastructure needs in order to advance the state’s goal to have universal broadband access in Washington by 2024. Those with no internet access at their homes are encouraged to visit a local library or drive-in hotspot in their community, or use their mobile device to take the survey and check the “no available service” button to record their physical address.