One fact of discussions of home broadband availability in many countries is the amount of noise about inadequate coverage and service speeds compared to actual availability. To be sure, rural areas might always lag urban areas in many areas of life--economic or social--no matter what we do.
But it also is helpful to keep perspective. In the United Kingdom, for example, almost every home location can get internet access at minimum speeds of 30 Mbps, which is roughly equivalent to the U.S. minimum definition of 25 Mbps.
Comparing first half of 2022 to last half of 2021 figures, for example, current coverage at a minimum of 30 Mbps is more than 97 percent (compared to last half 2021 total of just shy of 97 percent for the U.K. as a whole.
Gigabit speeds are available for purchase across 69 percent of U.K. homes.
In the U.S. market, for all the complaints we hear, gigabit speeds now are available to more than 88 percent of all U.S. homes, according to the Federal Communications Commission. Even if one disagrees with that estimate, most consumers in the U.S. market actually buy services operating far faster than the minimum.
Other estimates peg the percentage of homes with cable high-speed access at 90 percent. And reported uptake of gigabit speeds in rural areas is far higher than what most likely believe.
Consider rural telco networks. “Respondents to this year’s survey report an average of 4,467 residential and 469 business fixed broadband connections in service,” NTCA says, with an average of 7,581 serviceable locations.
“On average, three-quarters (75 percent) of serviceable locations are served by fiber to the home (FTTH) in 2021; this is an increase of 5.1 percentage points from the prior year’s survey, the latest Broadband/Internet Availability report issued by NTCA says.
An average of 15 percent of locations continue to be served via copper loops while fiber to the node (FTTN) is used to serve an average of six percent serviceable locations. Cable modems service 2.7 percent of locations, licensed fixed wireless 0.7 percent and unlicensed fixed wireless 0.6 percent of locations.
As in urban areas, availability does not mean customers actually choose to buy the fastest tier of service. But they can do so if they choose.
About half of U.S. internet access customers buy services running between 200 Mbps and 400 Mbps as of June 2022. That is a shift. Until recently, about half of the customers purchased services running between 100 Mbps and 200 Mbps.
Roughly 70 percent of fixed network broadband customers purchase service at speeds of 200 Mbps or higher. Customers who buy gigabit or faster service have reached 13 percent, while customers of services operating between 500 Mbps and 900 Mbps are six percent of total.
There are problems, to be sure. If 98 percent of U.S. homes can buy internet access at the defined minimum, that still leaves two percent that cannot. Work has to be done there, of course. But it also is important to note the high and growing percentage of U.S. homes that can buy gigabit service, a figure that might range between 80 percent and 90 percent.
Speeds and coverage will keep increasing. As electricity now is available to 100 percent of homes, but took decades to reach 70-percent coverage, so broadband will get there as well, using a mix of platforms. The most isolated locations might always lag speeds available in the urban areas, to be sure. But coverage, as such, will cease to be a problem.
The point is to maintain perspective. We all face many problems that must be solved, and we must work on all of them at the same time. Exaggeration does not help. Quality U.S. home broadband remains an issue, but is not the widespread problem it often is made out to be.
There are issues and they are being addressed. But home broadband is hardly a crisis. In perspective, it might not even make a list of the “10 biggest problems” most households face.
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