How we know what we publish

What the data is

Providers must report, twice a year, every location where they offer or could offer service within ten business days. The FCC aggregates that against a national list of "broadband serviceable locations", or BSLs, which is roughly every address where fixed internet could be delivered. We use the county-level aggregation of that dataset.

The three categories on our pages are the FCC's own. Served means at least 100/20 Mbps is available. Underserved means at least 25/3 but under 100/20. Unserved means under 25/3, or nothing at all.

What it cannot tell you

• It is provider-reported. Providers have an incentive to report generously, and there is a formal challenge process precisely because they sometimes do. Treat coverage figures as an upper bound.
• A county is not an address. Coverage stops at the edge of a build. A county that is 40% fiber can still mean nothing on your road.
• Available is not affordable. The data records what can be sold to you, not at what price.
• Speeds are the maximum advertised. They are not measured, and they are not what you will see at seven in the evening.

How pages are built

Each source is downloaded, hashed and stored with the date it was captured. Pages are generated from that stored snapshot, so any page can be reproduced exactly. When a source publishes new data we compare it against the previous capture and regenerate only the pages whose numbers actually changed. That is why a page's "last updated" date means something: it moves when the data moves, not when we rebuild the site.

A page is not published at all unless it has real data behind it. Counties with no reported serviceable locations, or too little data to say anything specific, are skipped rather than filled with generic text.

What we will not do

• We do not publish invented reviews, invented speed tests, or testimonials from people who do not exist.
• We do not accept payment for a better ranking or a more favourable description.
• We do not print a price we have not checked, with the date we checked it.
• We do not describe an option as good when it is not.