The FCC’s estimate comes from numbers self-reported
by internet service providers using the Form 477
mandated by the FCC. But BroadbandNow’s new report
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Why? Because Form 477 lets an ISP consider an entire
census block to be covered by the ISP even when only
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the “smallest geographic area for which the Bureau of
the Census collects and tabulates decennial census
data.” That could be an actual block or a section of an
area’s population.
So BroadbandNow dove into the 477s and did some
additional research, and it came up with completely
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order above, and below are the same states in state
alphabetical order.
The organization’s guess: More like 42.82 million
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wireless) in this country.
Form 477 lets
an ISP
consider an
entire census
block covered
by the ISP
even if only
one household
has service.