What is the state of broadband deployment in the United States? The simple answer is that despite years of substantial funding and programs focused on broadband expansion, there is no single federal data source for an accurate answer to that question. The range of estimations varies wildly, depending on what you consider “rural”; what you consider “broadband” speeds; whether you distinguish among transmission technologies (fiber, fixed wireless, mobile/cellular, satellite) or not; and what it actually means for an area to be “unserved,” “underserved,” or “served” – the last of which may not actually mean that broadband is available to everyone living within the census block.
