- Adoption vs. availability
- Broadband subscription
- Any Internet subscription
- No Internet access
- American Community Survey (ACS)
- Digital divide
- FCC Broadband Serviceable Location Fabric
- Margin of error
- Not address-specific
- Adoption vs. availability
- Availability is whether a fast connection can be bought at a location. Adoption is whether the household actually subscribes. This site measures adoption — from a household survey — not availability, which comes from provider-reported FCC data.
- Broadband subscription
- A household reporting an Internet subscription of a type other than dial-up alone — cable, fiber, DSL, fixed wireless or satellite. It is a yes/no from the census survey and does not indicate the speed or which provider.
- Any Internet subscription
- A household reporting any paid Internet service at all, including a cellular data plan on its own. It is always a higher share than broadband, because some homes rely only on a phone plan.
- No Internet access
- A household reporting no Internet use of any kind — no subscription and no access without a subscription. A high share here is the clearest sign of a local digital divide.
- American Community Survey (ACS)
- The U.S. Census Bureau's continuous sample survey. The connectivity figures come from ACS table B28002, published as 5-year estimates so that every county and small city is covered.
- Digital divide
- The gap in Internet access and use between groups — often rural vs. urban, higher- vs. lower-income, or older vs. younger areas. On this site it shows up as differences in the broadband and no-internet shares between places.
- FCC Broadband Serviceable Location Fabric
- The FCC's proprietary, licence-restricted dataset of individual locations and the service reported there. We deliberately do not use it. A future provider/technology layer here would use only the FCC's freely reusable public datasets.
- Margin of error
- Because the ACS is a sample, every percentage carries a range of uncertainty. It is largest for small places; treat a figure for a small city as approximate rather than exact.
- Not address-specific
- Every figure here is for a whole state, county or city. It cannot tell you what is available or subscribed at a particular home; for that, check providers directly or the FCC's National Broadband Map.
More on sources and limits on the About the Data page and the FAQ.