Methodology & Data Sources

Data Source

PlainBroadband uses data from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) (Form 477 Broadband Deployment Data). Form 477 was the FCC's long-running mechanism for collecting fixed-broadband availability filings from facilities-based providers in the United States. It operated from 2000 through its final fixed-deployment release in 2020; the FCC has since replaced it with the Broadband Data Collection (BDC) system.

Data Vintage & Coverage

Our data reflects the FCC's final Form 477 fixed broadband deployment release (June 2020 status) - the last public Form 477 snapshot before the FCC moved to its Broadband Data Collection system. The FCC previously collected Form 477 data twice per year, with reporting dates of June 30 and December 31, but retired this fixed-deployment collection after the June 2020 filing. Because no newer Form 477 fixed-deployment release exists, our figures are a stable historical record rather than a live feed - there is no ongoing refresh cycle for this dataset.

  • 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 providers represented in the final Form 477 fixed-deployment release
  • Technology types: 10 distinct broadband delivery technology categories tracked by the FCC, including fiber, cable, DSL, terrestrial fixed wireless, satellite, and others
  • Record granularity: Census block level availability, aggregated by provider, state, and technology on PlainBroadband

Release matrix

Source Release used What PlainBroadband publishes Update status
FCC Form 477 fixed broadband deployment data June 2020 status, the final fixed-deployment release Historical provider, state, technology, coverage-record, and reported-speed aggregates Retired source; this portal has no rolling refresh cycle
FCC Broadband Data Collection (BDC) Not included in this portal Nothing: BDC is the appropriate source for current, address-level availability Separate system; no BDC results are inferred or substituted here

How We Process the Data

Our reproducible data pipeline transforms the FCC's published open-data records into searchable pages through the following steps:

  1. Query the FCC's published Form 477 open-data API for the aggregate records used by this portal
  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.
  • This portal is a fixed historical archive: its June 2020 vintage is years behind the current date, not merely delayed by a reporting cycle.
  • The FCC's BDC system is a separate, more granular source. It is not included here, so this portal cannot answer current address-level availability, pricing, or service-quality questions.
  • 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.