US Broadband Technology Coverage Distribution

PlainBroadband presents the distribution of broadband coverage records across the 10 FCC-defined technology categories (fiber, cable, DSL, satellite, and terrestrial fixed wireless). Sourced from the FCC's final Form 477 release.

Research period: 2026-05-17

Compiled by PlainBroadband Editorial, Broadband Coverage Editorial Team · May 17, 2026

Methodology

This ranking is built from the FCC's final Form 477 fixed-broadband-deployment release (June 2020 status) - the last snapshot published before the program was retired. Because the program has ended, these figures are a stable historical record rather than a live-refreshing feed; nothing here changes without a new upstream release from the FCC.

Technologies with no data reported are left out of the ranking rather than shown as a false zero, since the FCC occasionally withheld a figure for confidentiality or data-quality reasons in the original release.

Every number on this page traces back to a specific FCC Form 477 record, so you can verify it yourself against the original source rather than taking our word for it. See the methodology page for the full data pipeline and dataset vintage.

The ranked top 10

Every row below reflects the FCC's final Form 477 release, a stable historical record.

#	Technology	FCC code	Coverage records
1	Satellite	60	32,267,766
2	Terrestrial Fixed Wireless	70	9,599,266
3	Cable	cable	5,806,935
4	ADSL2+	11	3,788,469
5	DSL	10	3,690,571
6	VDSL	12	2,761,502
7	Fiber	50	2,618,693
8	Other Copper	30	80,508
9	Symmetric DSL	20	45,070
10	Other	0	447

Source: Federal Communications Commission, Form 477 Fixed Broadband Deployment Data (June 2020 status). A stable historical snapshot; the source dataset is no longer updated. Federal Communications Commission, Form 477 Fixed Broadband Deployment Data (June 2020 status). A stable historical snapshot; the source dataset is no longer updated.

Findings

Top entity in the ranking

The top-ranked record in this dataset is Satellite, with a value of 32,267,766 on the Coverage records column. The full top-10 set is rendered in the table above. Every value derives from the underlying technologies table; no number is hardcoded into this page. When the Federal Communications Commission publishes a revision and our ETL pipeline reingests, the ranking and the prose around it update on the next page load.

Distribution shape

The gap between the top-ranked record (32,267,766) and the 10th-ranked record (447) characterizes how concentrated the top of the distribution is. Where the top value is many multiples of the median value of the visible set, the population is highly concentrated, a small number of entities accumulate the bulk of the measured quantity. Where the top and bottom of the visible set are close together, the distribution is relatively flat across the top end. The full distribution beyond this top-10 cut is summarized in the aggregate context section below and explored in the linked entity profiles.

Aggregate context

Across the full technologies population, the aggregate query returns the following summary statistics. These anchors situate the top-10 ranking against the underlying population: how many records exist in total, what the sum of the ranking column is across all qualifying rows, and what the mean per-record value looks like. The methodology page documents the exact filter applied by the aggregate query (records with null or zero values on the ranking column are excluded). The aggregate row is computed by the same database engine that renders the ranking above, against the same snapshot.

Source provenance

The records in this ranking originate from Federal Communications Commission, specifically the Form 477 Fixed Broadband Deployment Data (June 2020 status). PlainBroadband ingested that release once and serves it as a stable historical record, since the FCC Form 477 fixed-deployment program has been retired and is no longer updated. The methodology page documents the source URL, the vintage date, and the transformation steps applied during ETL.

Why this ranking matters

Rankings like this one let a reader scan a population quickly and identify outliers, concentrations, and patterns that warrant deeper investigation. The detail pages linked from each entity in the table above give the full per-entity context: time-series history where available, related metrics from adjacent tables, and links onward to the underlying source records. The methodology page explains how an entity earns inclusion in the dataset and how the ranking column is computed at the source.

What this analysis cannot tell us

The FCC Form 477 fixed broadband deployment dataset classifies broadband technology using standard codes; PlainBroadband groups them into 10 reader-facing categories covering fiber, cable, DSL and copper variants, terrestrial fixed wireless, and satellite. A single census block can be reported under multiple technology codes if multiple service types are available there, so technology-level record counts will sum to more than the unique-block count. Satellite (code 60) covers wide geographic areas including locations where no terrestrial broadband is available; it contributes disproportionately to total record counts because every covered location is enumerated, even though relatively few households subscribe. Terrestrial wireline technologies (fiber, cable, DSL) are concentrated in higher-density population areas where buildout economics support deployment. Records are reported by providers under FCC Form 477 requirements and reflect provider-claimed serviceability, not measured delivery. Coverage volume by technology is a useful indicator of infrastructure investment patterns; it is not a measure of actual broadband adoption, subscriber satisfaction, or competitive market structure in any specific location.

US Broadband Technology Coverage Distribution

Research question

Methodology