Data sources

Every number on this site comes from a public government source. This page explains each one, how current it is, and what it cannot tell you.

Internet providers: FCC National Broadband Map

Internet providers must report to the Federal Communications Commission, twice a year, every location where they offer or could install fixed broadband within about ten business days. The FCC publishes this as the National Broadband Map (Broadband Data Collection).

Provider coverage from the FCC’s public summary files is being loaded; until it is, town pages link to the FCC’s own address lookup. “Homes covered” is the share of residential locations in a town or county where a provider reports it can offer service.

Limits: this is what providers report, not a guarantee. It can lag new construction, and individual listings can be wrong — anyone can challenge them on the FCC map. Satellite providers report very wide coverage because a dish can be installed almost anywhere. We publish town and county totals only; the FCC’s location-level fabric is licensed and not republished here.

How households connect: American Community Survey

Household figures come from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey 2019–2023 5-year estimates, table B28002 (“Presence and types of internet subscriptions in household”), with population from table B01003. The survey asks a sample of households which internet subscriptions they have.

Limits: these are survey estimates for 2019–2023 with published margins of error. For small places the margins can be wide; where a margin is at least half the estimate, the page flags the figure as a small-sample estimate. A household can have more than one type of subscription, so categories such as “cable, fiber or DSL” and “cellular data” overlap. Our connection bar uses the survey’s mutually exclusive categories (for example, “cellular data plan with no other type”) so it adds up.

Places and counties

Town names, land area and coordinates come from the Census Bureau’s 2023 Gazetteer files. Each town is linked to the county containing its internal point, via the Census TIGERweb service; towns that cross county lines are linked to one county. “Towns” include incorporated cities and Census-designated communities with 5,000 or more residents.

Updates

Pages were last built on September 28, 2026. The FCC updates its map twice a year and the Census Bureau releases new five-year estimates each December; we refresh after each release.