NTIA's Three Takeaways from Version 2 of the FCC’s National Broadband Map

Today the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released Version 2 of the National Broadband Map. This is an important step in meeting President Biden’s goal of connecting everyone in America to affordable, reliable, high-speed Internet service.

This map is the most accurate depiction of broadband availability in the FCC’s history. Last year, for the first time ever, the FCC generated a National Broadband Map that includes location level data. This tool provides the transparency needed to better understand the digital divide and to target funding to connect unserved and underserved communities across the country.

Below are NTIA’s three key takeaways from the latest data: 

• Through challenges and additional work that the FCC has been doing to improve the map’s underlying Fabric—a dataset of all locations where Internet service can be installed—the FCC added nearly three million Broadband Serviceable Locations (BSLs) while removing nearly two million for reasons ranging from updated data to the use of sophisticated tools to identify and remove structures like garages and sheds. 
• The FCC’s challenge process resolved more than 3.7 million challenges to the availability data —a dataset that shows whether Internet service is, in fact, available at each location, resulting in a more accurate picture of the high-speed Internet service currently available across the nation.
• The overall national story remains consistent: From version 1 to version 2 of the FCC’s map, the percentage of unserved locations nationwide increased by 0.2 percentage points. 

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