The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) finally has broadband availability maps that actually work. It only took historic federal funding and a global pandemic for us to get here. We’ve been waiting so long, in fact, that a number of state and local governments started just doing it on their own.
But now the long-awaited accurate maps of broadband coverage in the U.S. from the FCC are finally here. The agency announced the release of the maps on Friday to much fanfare from the telecom industry. The maps, which anyone can access online, let you zoom in all the way to the individual street address level and see if there is an Internet connection or not. Or you can take a bird’s eye view — the maps adjust in real time to reflect coverage based on how much you’ve zoomed in or out. You can also filter by different connection types, including fixed broadband, mobile or a combination.
But most important, you can actually see the gaps where there is no coverage. “These maps provide the best picture available to date of where broadband is and is not available across the country, and the maps will only get better from here,” said FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel.
