What they say
vs what you get
The national broadband map is built from what providers say they offer. A block is “served” when a company reports it could connect you - at the fastest tier it advertises, not the speed that actually arrives at night. This is a diagnostic of where that gap runs widest.
Real Coverage, community, and competition are the FCC's own BDC December 2025 data. Illustrative The single-provider vignettes and the measured-speed characterizations model documented patterns - marked throughout. See Methodology.
Three optimisms
01 / Why the map says you're coveredNobody has to lie for the broadband map to overstate reality. The overstatement is built into three definitions - each defensible on its own, compounding into a picture rosier than the one you meet when you actually try to buy service. Every claim in this section is documented.
- Fault 01
“Could serve” counts as served
A location is listed as covered when a provider says it could begin service within ten business days of a request - even if nobody there subscribes, the build-out quote runs into the thousands, or a line was never actually installed.
Real The BDC availability standard is provider self-report of where service is or could be made available, not where it is built, sold, and running.
- Fault 02
Advertised speed, not measured speed
Filings carry each provider's maximum advertised tier. What actually arrives at 8 p.m. on a congested node is a different number entirely - measured by a separate program, never shown on the coverage map.
Real The FCC's Measuring Broadband America program exists precisely because the availability filings report advertised, not measured, throughput.
- Fault 03
One qualifying spot can flag a whole area
The retired Form 477 marked an entire census block “served” if a single location in it could get service. The BDC moved to location-level reporting in 2022 - an improvement - but the data is still self-reported and the underlying Location Fabric still misses units.
Real Form 477's block-level overstatement is the documented reason Congress ordered the more granular Broadband Data Collection.
In 2019 the FCC reported ~21 million Americans lacked 25/3 access. Microsoft, reading its own service telemetry, estimated ~120 million-plus were not actually using the internet at broadband speeds - the single most-cited illustration of the availability-versus-reality gap.
The coverage gap
02 / When satellite carries the mapBy the map's own numbers, 99.99% of the country can get 100 / 20 Mbps - all but a rounding error. But that figure counts a low-orbit satellite dish as a broadband option. Strip satellite out and keep only a wire to the home, and the served share falls to 92.76%.
Real Unit-weighted over the FCC Location Fabric (162,419,094 broadband-serviceable locations), December 2025 BDC. "Available" means a provider filed the location as served or serviceable, not that service is installed and sold.
And the gap is not evenly shared
The share of each community without a wired 100 / 20 Mbps option. Urban America is effectively wired; the gap opens in rural counties and widens again on Tribal lands, where terrain, jurisdiction, and the thinnest build-out returns compound.
Dense enough that build-out pays for itself; wired competition is the norm.
Low density means long loops and thin returns; often one wired option or none.
The widest and most persistent gap - terrain, jurisdiction, and the lowest build-out returns compound.
The same figures, in a table
| Community | Without wired 100/20 | Without 25/3 |
|---|---|---|
| Urban | 2.5% | 2.2% |
| Rural | 23.5% | 21.1% |
| Tribal lands | 25.7% | 22.7% |
Real The FCC's own BDC December 2025 shares, unit-weighted over the Location Fabric and split by community type. The Tribal gap is the widest and the most persistent in the data.
By technology
03 / What is available, and to whomBreak the map apart by technology and the headline dissolves. Low-orbit satellite is filed at nearly every location, which is why the all-in number reads like full coverage. The wire that actually lands a low-latency, uncapped line - fiber - reaches barely half. Copper, still on the map, clears 100/20 almost nowhere.
The same figures, in a table
| Technology | Type | At 100/20 | At 25/3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Satellite (low-orbit) | Satellite | 99.7% | 99.7% |
| Cable (DOCSIS) | Wired | 82.93% | 83.1% |
| Fiber (FTTP) | Wired | 55.78% | 55.81% |
| Licensed fixed wireless | Fixed wireless | 51.19% | 78.64% |
| Unlicensed fixed wireless | Fixed wireless | 12.84% | 19.14% |
| DSL (copper) | Wired | 3.72% | 18.68% |
| Satellite (geostationary) | Satellite | 0% | 99.93% |
Real Availability is the share of Location Fabric locations a technology is filed as serving at each tier. "Available" is the map's own standard - filed as serviceable, not installed and sold. Unit-weighted over the FCC Location Fabric (162,419,094 broadband-serviceable locations), December 2025 BDC. "Available" means a provider filed the location as served or serviceable, not that service is installed and sold.
One option, or none
04 / How many wires actually reach youA green dot on the coverage map says available. It does not say how many companies you can actually choose between. Counting the wired providers filed at each location, this is how much of the country has real competition - and how much has one line, or none.
of U.S. locations - about 35.1 million - have a single wired broadband provider or none at all. Where one company files, the advertised price is simply the price: no competitor to undercut it, and the map still reads as covered.
Real Location-weighted over the 116,465,390 locations that appear in at least one fixed BDC filing (satellite is filed nationwide, so this is effectively every serviceable location). A "wired provider" is a Copper, Cable, or Fiber provider filing the location; "one or none" counts locations with a single wired provider or zero.
Illustrative The vignettes below are archetypes, not named counties with fabricated provider counts - each dramatizes a documented single-provider pattern the numbers above measure in aggregate. The state map shows where they concentrate.
- 01
A ranching county in the Mountain West
Terrestrial providers file the county as “served” from a tower miles away. The only line you can actually order is a satellite dish with a 600 ms round-trip.
- 02
A Mississippi Delta parish
A single cable company holds the whole footprint. No competitor files here, so the advertised price is simply whatever the incumbent lists.
- 03
An Appalachian hollow
The map shows 25 Mbps DSL. On a copper loop this long the line syncs at a fraction of that - but it still counts as covered.
- 04
A high-desert Tribal community
Service depends on an unobstructed path to a distant tower. Where terrain blocks it, the household is counted served and gets nothing.
- 05
An exurban new-build subdivision
The developer wired a single provider. It sits on the map at gigabit - with a months-long install backlog.
Where you have a choice
05 / One wired option, by stateThe share of each state's locations with a single wired provider - or none - filed at the current benchmark. Competition is not a rural-or-urban story alone: it turns on who built the wire. Alaska and West Virginia run deepest, but so does Massachusetts, where one cable incumbent holds town after town.
Real Location-weighted from the FCC BDC December 2025 availability files. "One wired provider or none" counts locations with a single Copper / Cable / Fiber provider or zero. Territories (American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Marianas, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico) are in the table but off the map projection.
Every state, in a table
| State | One wired or none | Fiber available | Wired 100/20 |
|---|---|---|---|
| American Samoa | 100% | 28.19% | 21.93% |
| United States Virgin Islands | 76.79% | 26.45% | 99.58% |
| Alaska | 64.36% | 16.15% | 71.45% |
| West Virginia | 59.03% | 41.82% | 81.48% |
| Montana | 47.44% | 39.67% | 77.46% |
| Massachusetts | 45.18% | 53.6% | 99.33% |
| North Dakota | 44.55% | 73.55% | 99.19% |
| Delaware | 44.47% | 57.87% | 98.25% |
| South Dakota | 44.38% | 67.28% | 94.77% |
| Oklahoma | 41.54% | 67.62% | 85.32% |
| Arkansas | 40.45% | 65.04% | 87.88% |
| Michigan | 39.73% | 38.6% | 91.25% |
| Wyoming | 39.58% | 47.93% | 76.02% |
| Mississippi | 38.5% | 68.83% | 87.56% |
| Kentucky | 37.97% | 69.41% | 90.58% |
| New York | 37.65% | 68.48% | 97% |
| Wisconsin | 37.37% | 52.02% | 87.58% |
| Virginia | 37.15% | 68.39% | 92.16% |
| Washington | 36.24% | 37.81% | 90.97% |
| New Jersey | 36.23% | 68.47% | 98.34% |
| Pennsylvania | 36.04% | 59.33% | 95.43% |
| Maryland | 35.37% | 67.43% | 98.26% |
| Idaho | 34.87% | 44.04% | 79.36% |
| Louisiana | 34.8% | 57.15% | 88.86% |
| Alabama | 33.41% | 62.67% | 89.15% |
| Missouri | 32.41% | 66.09% | 86.38% |
| Vermont | 31.66% | 64.93% | 90.87% |
| Kansas | 31.59% | 78.81% | 90.05% |
| New Mexico | 31.32% | 30.3% | 82.56% |
| Iowa | 31.21% | 76.01% | 92.03% |
| South Carolina | 30.47% | 63.78% | 96.53% |
| Maine | 29.94% | 60.41% | 92.08% |
| Texas | 28.5% | 71.92% | 90.77% |
| North Carolina | 27.76% | 62% | 93.5% |
| Indiana | 27.38% | 67.23% | 92.72% |
| Nebraska | 27.27% | 78.81% | 90.06% |
| Ohio | 27.26% | 54.79% | 92.81% |
| Minnesota | 26.39% | 60.65% | 93.21% |
| Arizona | 26.38% | 38.86% | 85.68% |
| Illinois | 25.21% | 44.85% | 93.6% |
| Oregon | 25.14% | 54.17% | 92.33% |
| Georgia | 24.88% | 67.09% | 95.93% |
| California | 24.56% | 45.83% | 93.16% |
| Nevada | 23.19% | 43.13% | 91.98% |
| Tennessee | 21.75% | 78.11% | 97.25% |
| Rhode Island | 20.59% | 86.57% | 96.84% |
| Hawaii | 20.22% | 80.05% | 96.75% |
| Florida | 19.98% | 64.83% | 95.6% |
| New Hampshire | 18.99% | 70.53% | 97.68% |
| Utah | 18.94% | 75.16% | 93.98% |
| Colorado | 18.54% | 55.43% | 91.16% |
| Connecticut | 16.08% | 81.49% | 97.99% |
| Puerto Rico | 14.68% | 61.27% | 93.68% |
| Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands | 12.01% | 0.72% | 0.77% |
| Guam | 6.1% | 45.77% | 67.28% |
| District of Columbia | 5.79% | 86.78% | 99.8% |
Advertised vs measured
06 / The gap, by technologyThe map counts a line as broadband on the strength of its advertised tier. But the distance between “up to” and “what arrives” depends almost entirely on the wire. Fiber keeps its promise; long copper and geostationary satellite are where the paper number and the lived experience diverge most.
Illustrative The reach bars encode the documented gap tier for each technology, not a per-provider measurement - the empty stretch is the gap, no fake precise percentage implied. The FCC's Measuring Broadband America program is the real source of measured-vs-advertised throughput. Real The "available at 100/20" figure on each row is the actual BDC December 2025 share.
-
DSL (copper)
large gapadvertised Up to 25 MbpsAvailable at 100/20 Realavailable to 3.72% of locations- They advertise
- Up to 25 Mbps
- What you actually get
- On long rural copper loops the line syncs well below the “up to” number - frequently an advertised availability the household can never actually reach.
-
Satellite - geostationary
large gapadvertised 25 - 100 MbpsAvailable at 100/20 Realavailable to 0% of locations- They advertise
- 25 - 100 Mbps
- What you actually get
- The download tier can be met, but a 600 ms+ round-trip and hard monthly caps make it unusable for video calls or gaming. “Available” on paper, marginal in practice.
-
Fixed wireless
moderate gapadvertised Up to 100 MbpsAvailable at 100/20 Realavailable to 51.19% of locations- They advertise
- Up to 100 Mbps
- What you actually get
- Highly variable - terrain, weather, and distance to the tower decide it. A clear line-of-sight home is fine; a blocked one gets a fraction.
-
Cable (DOCSIS)
small gapadvertised Up to 300 - 1,000 downAvailable at 100/20 Realavailable to 82.93% of locations- They advertise
- Up to 300 - 1,000 down
- What you actually get
- Download usually lands near the advertised tier off-peak; upload is a small fraction of it, and both dip on congested nodes at night.
-
Satellite - low-earth-orbit
small gapadvertised 50 - 200 MbpsAvailable at 100/20 Realavailable to 99.7% of locations- They advertise
- 50 - 200 Mbps
- What you actually get
- Latency drops to 20 - 60 ms and speeds land closer to advertised, but shared capacity means slowdowns where too many subscribe. It reshaped rural options after 2021.
-
Fiber (FTTP)
minimal gapadvertised 300 - 1,000 MbpsAvailable at 100/20 Realavailable to 55.78% of locations- They advertise
- 300 - 1,000 Mbps
- What you actually get
- Delivers at or above the advertised tier, with 5 - 15 ms latency. The gap here is availability, not speed - most homes still can't get it run to the door.
The same table, plainly
| Technology | Advertised | Gap |
|---|---|---|
| DSL (copper) | Up to 25 Mbps | large |
| Satellite - geostationary | 25 - 100 Mbps | large |
| Fixed wireless | Up to 100 Mbps | moderate |
| Cable (DOCSIS) | Up to 300 - 1,000 down | small |
| Satellite - low-earth-orbit | 50 - 200 Mbps | small |
| Fiber (FTTP) | 300 - 1,000 Mbps | minimal |
Methodology
07 / What's real, what's illustrativeThe coverage, community, and competition figures on this page are real, aggregated directly from the FCC Broadband Data Collection's December 2025 filing - the same data the national map is built from. The honest line still runs down the middle: Real where a number comes from the BDC data, Illustrative where a vignette dramatizes a documented pattern the numbers measure in aggregate.
Source and pipeline
The feed is the FCC Broadband Data Collection
(broadbandmap.fcc.gov), pulled through its data-download API
with a free FCC account token. Two products drive the page: the location-level
availability files - about 116 million
broadband-serviceable locations, aggregated from roughly 973 million
provider filings across every state and technology - and the
Summary by Geography Type file, which the FCC denominates over its full
Location Fabric. scripts/build-data.ts folds the two aggregates onto the
curated editorial narrative; HANDOFF.md has the exact fetch, token, and
aggregation recipe. Speed reality checks would come from the FCC's separate
Measuring Broadband America program, which is not wired in.
How the FCC defines “availability” - and why it runs optimistic
A location is counted as served when a provider reports it could supply service there, at its maximum advertised speed, typically within ten business days of a request. Three consequences follow, and they are the spine of this page: “could serve” is treated as “served”; advertised speed stands in for measured speed; and low-orbit satellite, filed at nearly every location, pushes the all-technology number to 99.99% even where no wire reaches. Not a conspiracy - just what the definition literally counts.
What is real
- The current fixed-broadband benchmark of 100 / 20 Mbps, raised in 2024 from the 25 / 3 Mbps floor set in 2015.
- Coverage: 99.99% of locations have any 100 / 20 Mbps option, but only 92.76% have a wired one - leaving about 11.8 million locations with no wired option. Unit-weighted over the Location Fabric (162,419,094 locations).
- Community shares (Urban, Rural, Tribal) and per-technology availability, all from the BDC Summary by Geography Type file, December 2025.
- Competition: 30.1% of locations have one wired provider or none. Location-weighted from the 116,465,390-location availability files; the state map ranks the same figure.
- The historical FCC-versus-Microsoft gap: ~21M reported unserved at 25/3 in 2019 against Microsoft's ~120M-plus not actually using broadband speeds.
A note on the two denominators
Coverage and community shares are unit-weighted over the full Location Fabric (the FCC's official denominator, counting each housing unit). The competition figures are location-weighted over the locations that appear in at least one fixed filing - effectively every serviceable location, since satellite is filed nationwide. The two weightings land within about a point of each other on shared measures; each figure uses the denominator that fits its source.
What is illustrative
- The single-provider vignettes are composites of documented patterns, not named counties with fabricated provider counts. The real single-provider share and the state map above measure the same thing in aggregate.
- The per-technology advertised-versus-measured delivery bars encode the documented gap tier, not per-provider measurements; the availability figure on each row is real BDC. Measuring Broadband America supplies the real measured numbers.
- The Compare page is a static example pairing at a hypothetical rural address - a preview of the address-lookup tool, not a live query.
What you're not seeing
Price. Installation quotes that make a “served” address unbuildable in practice. Data caps and throttling. The households the Location Fabric misses entirely. Availability answers “could someone sell you a line here,” which is a narrower question than “can you get affordable, usable internet” - and it is the only question the map is built to answer.
Generated 2026-07-11 12:41 UTC
Source: FCC Broadband Data Collection (BDC), December 2025 filing - Location Coverage + Summary by Geography Type