March 19, 2024

Benjamin Better

Better Get Computer

Fiber on the rise: What FCC’s new info tells us about broadband in the US

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Ry Crist/CNET

Each 6 months, the Federal Communications Fee releases current information on the respective protection of each and every net provider in the US. That includes protection maps as perfectly as metrics on the forms of technologies becoming utilized, the amount of prospects that slide into every single provider’s footprint, and the precise add and obtain speeds available to those clients, should they opt for to indication up. The hottest update went dwell just last 7 days, and brings the database up to day as of June 2020.

In spite of some infamous shortcomings, that FCC facts is of unique desire to us on the CNET Household workforce as we keep on evaluating and reviewing every single key online provider in the US. That is for the reason that all those FCC disclosures drive each individual supplier to demonstrate their cards and provide us a glimpse at how the scope of their protection is switching — or not. As quite a few of us continue to press our networks to the max doing the job from dwelling amidst the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the surging delta variant, tracking the development of the tech titans delivering our web connections feels much more pertinent than ever.

To that stop, here’s a swift rundown of the important takeaways from the FCC’s newest update, and what they explain to us about the recent state of broadband in America.

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Ry Crist/CNET

Far more of the exact same from the regular suspects

The record of the largest net companies in the US hasn’t modified significantly above the past handful of years. As of June of previous yr, satellite vendors Hughesnet and Viasat had been the only ISPs that can declare to present company to 100% of the state. In the meantime, AT&T, Comcast Xfinity and Constitution Spectrum had been the only other vendors that supplied company to additional than 30% of the US Verizon, CenturyLink and Frontier ended up the only many others with footprints masking far more than 10% of the US. All of that was accurate five many years ago, also.

Nonetheless, all of the aforementioned vendors noticed the share of US shoppers within their coverage maps tick up by at the very least 1% in the course of that span. Other vendors, including Cox Communications, Windstream, WideOpenWest (aka WOW) and Mediacom have all found incremental gains considering that 2016, as perfectly. Amid smaller companies, Sparklight (formerly Cable One particular) noticed its pool of probable clients enhance by about 50%, from 1.01% of the nation to 1.51%.


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By percentage, the largest gain among the providers we’re tracking actually goes to Google Fiber. Though it’s never been available to more than 1% of the US, Alphabet’s internet service saw its customer base grow by more than 100% between 2016 and 2020, from 0.46% to 0.98%.

“We’re building on our mission to connect more people to fast, reliable internet in Google Fiber cities across the country,” a spokesperson for Google Fiber said earlier this year. “Google Fiber construction teams are actively working to build out our networks in each one of our existing Fiber cities, and we’re expanding to new neighboring communities in some of those cities.”

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Starlink’s satellite internet coverage is expanding this year, but we’ll need to wait until next year to see how the service stacks up in the FCC’s database.


John Kim/CNET

No sign of Starlink — yet

The FCC’s database doesn’t include any data from SpaceX or from Starlink, the company’s bid at building out a network of orbital satellites capable of providing an internet connection just about anywhere on Earth. That’s because the FCC releases its data on a one-year delay, so the latest figures are only up to date as of June of last year. Starlink didn’t start offering service through its beta launch until the end of 2020.

Still, SpaceX has had a busy year. In February, the still-in-beta internet service hit 10,000 users, and after a series of successful launches, the number of satellites in Starlink’s constellation is nearing 2,000. During a talk at Mobile World Congress in June, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said that Starlink would be available worldwide except at the North and South Poles starting in August. That echoed SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell who, weeks earlier, told an audience at the Macquarie Technology Summit that Starlink would reach global serviceability sometime this fall.

“We’ve successfully deployed 1,800 or so satellites, and once all those satellites reach their operational orbit we will have continuous global coverage so that should be like [the] September time frame,” Shotwell said.

All of that means that we should expect to see Starlink in that FCC database within another update or two. Those disclosures about Starlink’s speeds and the true scope of its coverage should be interesting, so we’ll certainly keep an eye out for them. In the meantime, you can read more about our early, hands-on impressions of Starlink’s satellite internet service here.

At the start of 2020, only four providers offered fiber-optic internet plans to at least 30% of their customers. Six months later, the number jumped to seven.


Ry Crist/CNET

Fiber is on the rise…

With gigabit speeds that far surpass most other internet technologies, as well as upload speeds that are just as fast as they are for downloads, fiber-optic internet (fiber, for short) is widely considered to be the ideal mode of connecting to the web. The problem is that it isn’t available everywhere — for the most part, providers have focused on building out fiber networks in population-dense regions around America’s major cities, leaving rural internet customers out of the mix.

That said, the category has seen some definite growth in recent years, particularly in 2020. At the start of the year, only four major providers — Google Fiber, Verizon Fios, WOW and Frontier — offered fiber service to at least 30% of serviceable addresses within their respective coverage maps. By June, the number had jumped to seven, with CenturyLink, AT&T and newcomer Ziply Fiber joining the mix. Elsewhere, Windstream went from offering fiber to a scant 1.7% of customers in 2016 to offering it to 26.26% of them in 2020. Some even smaller providers, including Metronet, Sonic and Consolidated Communications, boast sizable fiber shares, as well.

Perhaps fittingly enough, the most eye-popping, eyebrow-raising gains go to WOW, which saw its percentage of customers with access to fiber plans jump from about 30% in December of 2019 to more than 96% in June of 2020. However, take that figure with a grain of salt — the company cautioned that the number may not be accurate when we asked about it.

“We believe the FCC’s data needs to be verified for accuracy and are working to do that now,” a spokesperson for WOW said. “We will provide that information to you as soon as we have it.”

CenturyLink is another provider that has notched some nice gains in the number of customers serviceable for fiber. In June of 2016, the company was able to offer its Quantum Fiber plans to 7.47% of customers — by June of 2020, after the company had announced fiber expansion efforts using existing multiconduit infrastructure, that figure had shot up to 38.34%, which is a five-fold increase with room to spare. The figure is even larger here in 2021, the company says, and it’s continuing to grow, with 2.6 million homes wired for fiber service as of the second quarter of the year, as per the company’s most recent earnings call (PDF).

“Quantum Fiber is currently available in about 50% of our footprint, including Denver, Portland, Salt Lake City, Seattle and Springfield, Missouri, with additional cities planned throughout 2021,” a spokesperson for CenturyLink parent company Lumen said.  

Of all of the internet providers that offer service to at least 10% of the US population (including satellite providers omitted from this chart), Verizon is the only one that offers upload speeds faster than 25Mbps to a majority of its customers.


Ry Crist/CNET

…but upload speeds are still much too slow

All of that said, upload speeds from most providers remain much slower than most customers would probably like. That’s largely because fiber is really the only mode of home internet capable of hitting triple-digit upload speeds, and as mentioned earlier, fiber is far from universally available.

According to the FCC, across all providers that offered home internet service to at least 10% of the population in 2020, only one — Verizon — offered upload speeds faster than 25Mbps to at least half of its customer base. Though the FCC only requires upload speeds of 3Mbps to qualify for its underwhelming definition of broadband, you’ll want a connection that’s a lot faster than that if you’re a regular in video conferences, an active gamer or if you ever need to upload large files to the web. That’s especially true if you’re connecting over Wi-Fi, since your upload speeds will dip noticeably if you’re working wirelessly a few rooms away from your router.

Expect upload speeds to serve as a growing point of focus in the coming years, particularly as bandwidth-heavy technologies like augmented reality continue to emerge. It’s a real question as to whether or not ISPs will keep up as demand for durable uploads rises. In March, a spokesperson for cable internet giant Comcast, which offers upload speeds no faster than 35Mbps, said that the company would continue to evaluate internet usage patterns, but had nothing to share regarding potential boosts to upstream traffic. In an especially frustrating turn, Altice announced that it would cut the upload speeds of its two cable internet brands, Optimum and Suddenlink, in order to align with slower competitors. 

Meanwhile, a new map for mobile

One last thing worth keeping an eye on in the FCC’s newly updated broadband database is the debut of new coverage maps for mobile carriers. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel called the tool a “first-of-its-kind wireless coverage map” for the agency, and while the data is currently limited to 4G LTE voice and data service from just four carriers, Rosenworcel promised that more is to come.

That data could become increasingly relevant for home internet service as 5G continues to spread across the country. A number of carriers, including T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T already offer both 5G and 4G LTE home internet service in select cities, and with some plans, the upload speeds can be faster than what you’d get with cable.

Along with our broader focus on broadband, expect us to keep an eye on those new cellular home internet options as they continue to roll out (and expect us to test them out as soon as we’re able, as we’ve already done with T-Mobile). With plans like those already up and running in select regions, it’s a safe bet that we’ll learn more about them in future FCC database releases, as well.