you and i try to buy it at home there are a few issues that contribute for one thing internet service providers or isps are notoriously consolidated at least NUMBER_TOKEN million americans can only access broadband through a single provider so if their service sucks those people are out of luck but the main culprit brings us back to maps i know we're pretty far down this telecom rabbit hole but just bear with me for a little bit longer because it's about to get pretty wild this is the fcc's official map of broadband internet accessibility it cost NUMBER_TOKEN million dollars as part of the NUMBER_TOKEN american recovery and reinvestment act basically part of the obama administration's plan to get the economy back on track included grants and loans for communities that lacked reliable high-speed internet that meant finding them and that meant making a map so the fcc released this map in NUMBER_TOKEN and it's been criticized pretty harshly ever since seriously if you're bored at work go down the angry NUMBER_TOKEN think pieces about the fcc broadband map rabbit hole it's a good time anyway it's the way the fcc collects this data that has people so mad about it first because they use census blocks to label areas as served or not if even one house has access to broadband internet the whole census block counts as served so if you live here and you don't get internet but your neighbor way over here does you do in fact have internet according to the fcc secondly is form NUMBER_TOKEN also known as the primary reason that this map is about as reliable as those mobile coverage maps from commercials form NUMBER_TOKEN is what isps use to submit their coverage data to the fcc check out this wording fixed broadband connections are available in a census block if the provider does or could without an extraordinary commitment of resources provide internet in plain english an isp doesn't have to have the internet actively up and running in your neighborhood in order to tell the fcc that they do they just have to be able to get it up and running without an extraordinary commitment of resources so naturally i wanted to know what does an extraordinary commitment of resources mean and it turns out everyone else does too there is no actual guidance on how many resources constitute an extraordinary commitments worth this data collection method dates back to the telecommunications act of NUMBER_TOKEN. and fine the internet wasn't nearly as important back then barely half of americans used it by the year NUMBER_TOKEN but even though our internet needs evolved during that time the fcc's method didn't thus this flawed NUMBER_TOKEN map was born and helped government officials distribute billions of dollars of grants and loans so in march NUMBER_TOKEN congress signed the data act which ordered the fcc to update the maps with input not just from providers but local governments and everyday citizens this is the first it's a map of mobile coverage NUMBER_TOKENg voice and data from the four largest mobile providers the fcc created this map using knowledge of cell tower locations and local geography to mathematically estimate coverage so it's not perfectly accurate to what your experience will be on the ground but it's a big first step the fcc is currently updating its broadband map and you can go tell them exactly what the situation is at your house right now we'll leave that link below but in the meantime other interested parties have created their own maps and they're pretty fun this is a map that the verge made earlier this year blue counties are those in which fewer than NUMBER_TOKEN
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