Methodology & Data Sources

Data Source

PlainBroadband uses data from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) (Form 477 Broadband Deployment Data). Form 477 is the FCC's primary mechanism for collecting broadband availability data from all facilities-based providers in the United States. The program has been in operation since 2000, making it the longest-running and most comprehensive broadband data collection effort in the country. All ISPs that provide broadband service are legally required to file.

Data Vintage & Coverage

Our current data reflects the most recent FCC Form 477 filings. The FCC collects data twice per year, with reporting dates of June 30 and December 31. We refresh our database within 4 weeks of each new data release from the FCC.

  • Geographic coverage: All 50 U.S. states plus DC, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and Northern Mariana Islands (56 total jurisdictions)
  • Provider count: 2,142 broadband providers with active filings
  • Technology types: 13 distinct broadband delivery technologies tracked by the FCC, including fiber, cable, DSL, fixed wireless (licensed and unlicensed), satellite, and others
  • Record granularity: Census block level availability, aggregated by provider, state, and technology on PlainBroadband

How We Process the Data

Our data pipeline transforms raw FCC data into searchable pages through the following steps:

  1. Download raw Form 477 deployment data files from the FCC (CSV format, several GB)
  2. Parse provider filings and validate data integrity (check for duplicate entries, missing fields, malformed records)
  3. Aggregate records by provider: compute total record counts and state counts per provider
  4. Aggregate records by state: compute provider counts, average maximum advertised download speeds, and technology percentage breakdowns (fiber, cable, DSL)
  5. Aggregate records by technology: compute total records per FCC technology code
  6. Build relationship tables mapping providers to states and states to technologies with record counts
  7. Generate URL-safe slugs for all entities to create clean, permanent page URLs
  8. Load the processed data into an optimized SQLite database with full indexing for fast page rendering

No data is fabricated, interpolated, or editorially modified. All values come directly from the FCC filings. Where we compute derived metrics (averages, percentages, rankings), the formula is documented on the relevant page. The technology percentage breakdowns on state pages represent the share of deployment records filed under each technology code, not the share of population with access.

Key Definitions

  • Record: A single broadband deployment filing by a provider, typically representing coverage of one census block with one technology type.
  • Provider count: The number of distinct providers with at least one deployment record in a given geography.
  • Average speed: The mean of maximum advertised download speeds across all provider filings in a state, weighted by record count.
  • Technology percentage: The share of deployment records in a state that use a given technology (fiber, cable, DSL).

Limitations

  • FCC Form 477 data reports availability at the census block level. A provider claiming coverage of a census block may not actually serve every location within that block, particularly in large rural blocks.
  • Speeds are maximum advertised speeds reported by providers, not measured or guaranteed speeds. Actual user experience varies based on congestion, distance from infrastructure, and home equipment.
  • Record counts represent deployment filings, not subscriber counts. We cannot determine how many people actually subscribe to a given provider from this data.
  • Data may lag the current date by several months due to the biannual reporting cycle and processing time.
  • The FCC is transitioning to the Broadband Data Collection (BDC) system, which collects more granular location-level data. Future updates may reflect this transition.
  • This data is provided for informational purposes only. Always verify service availability directly with providers for your specific address.

Contact

Questions about our methodology or data? Contact us — we welcome feedback and corrections.