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Broadband Brief No. 2 Published: May 2013 Abstract While it is commonly understood that broadband is less available in rural communities andmore available in urban communities, a simple two-way, rural-urban comparison masks thefact that there is considerable variation in availability within these two types of communities.By assigning communities to one of five categories, it becomes clear that there is not a simplerural/urban divide. Rather, one group of rural Americans has even less broadband access thanpreviously understood and two groups of urban Americans have more broadband than istypically identified. Additionally,this more granular analysis of broadband availability in rural and urbancommunities demonstrates that greater broadband availability within rural communities orwithin urban communities is closely associated with population density. However, comparingbroadband availability across the combination of all rural and urban communities establishesthat a community’s proximity to a Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) is often more closelyassociated with higher broadband speeds than is population density alone. Media Inquiries:(202) 482-2145press@ntia.doc.gov Technical Inquiries:(202) 482-3523sbdd@ntia.doc.gov Authors: David Beede is a Research Economist in the Office of the Chief Economist of the U.S. Department ofCommerce’s Economics and Statistics Administration. Anne Neville is the Director of the State Broadband Initiative at the National Telecommunications andInformation Administration. U.S. Department of CommerceNational Telecommunications and Information Administration1401 Constitution Ave., NWWashington, DC 20230www.ntia.doc.gov U.S. Department of CommerceEconomics and Statistics Administration1401 Constitution Ave., NWWashington, DC 20230www.esa.doc.gov About theBroadband BriefsSeries This report on the availability of broadband, authored by the National Telecommunications andInformation Administration (NTIA) and the Economics and Statistics Administration (ESA), is the secondreport in the Broadband Briefs series and uses publicly available data collected by the Department ofCommerce to examine broadband availability in greater detail.The U.S. Department of Commercepublishes key economic and demographic data that support effective decision-making by policymakers,businesses, and the American public. Information and Communications Technology is critical toeconomic growth and the Department plays a leading role in this area by overseeing programs thatexpand broadband access and adoption and also measure current availability and adoption across thecountry. The Department makes data available from its broadband-related programs—including theBroadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP), the State Broadband Initiative (SBI), and theCurrent Population Survey (CPS) Computer and Internet Use Supplement—for use by researchers andthe public to conduct economic, financial, demographic, and other studies. In addition, the Departmentconducts its own research and analysis to further examine the availability of broadband and the factorsassociated with increased broadband deployment. This report uses data from the June 30, 2011 State Broadband Initiative (SBI) dataset and the 2010Decennial Census, to compare broadband availability across rural and urban communities. NTIA, incollaboration with the FCC, and in partnership with the 50 states, five territories and the District ofColumbia, updates the SBI data and publishes the National Broadband Map (NBM) twice a year. Eachstate, or its designee, collects broadband data by census block or road segment. More informationabout data collection, verification, and publication is available in theAboutsection of the NBM. All dataare publicly available in theAnalyze,DeveloperorData Downloadsections of the NBM and all previousdatasets are also available onNTIA’s website. The description of how NTIA and the FCC process thesedata is available on theTechnical Overviewsection of the National Broadband Map. Data Definitions Used in this Report NTIA’s broadband availability dataset contains, among other information, advertised speeds at thecensus block level. In census blocks larger than two square miles, the data is collected by road segment.For the purposes of NTIA’s data collection, broadband is “available” if it can be deployed to a business orconsumer within 7-10 business days and without an extraordinary commitment of resources. Thisdefinition is in contrast to “adoption,” which means that a consumer or business subscribes to or usesbroadband at a particular location. The definition of broadband does not specifically include price,latency, bandwidth limitations, or other factors that may impact a user’s ability to purchase or use theservice. This report examines broadband availability, from the most basic speed levels, which allow a user toaccess several basic web tools, to the fastest speeds, for which developers are now beginning to designapplicatio