About Broadband Trail

How we use FCC and Census data

FCC National Broadband Map

Which providers we list, and how widely each one is available, comes from the FCC's Broadband Data Collection, in which providers report the locations where they offer fixed home internet service. We use the FCC's published summaries by state, county and Census place (filing as of December 30, 2025).

• Locations are the FCC's count of broadband-serviceable homes and businesses in an area.
• "Available" means the provider's filing covers most of the homes in that state, county or town.
• "Available in some areas" means the filing covers a meaningful part of the homes there, but not most of them.
• Providers whose filings cover only a small sliver of an area appear in the full provider table, not in the headline list. Satellite providers are shown separately because they report service almost everywhere.
• Technology (fiber, cable, fixed wireless, satellite) is the main technology that brand is known for; a provider can use more than one, and the type at your address can differ.

We do not publish coverage percentages, speeds or prices. A share of homes says nothing about your home, and the labels above describe availability in the same words we use on the phone.

Census American Community Survey

Household counts come from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey 5-year estimates (2020–2024). These are survey estimates with margins of error, especially for small places.

Connecticut is a special case: the FCC still reports its eight historical counties, while the Census Bureau has reported nine planning regions instead since 2022. For those eight county pages we add up the Census estimates for the towns that make up each county.

Counties and nearby towns

Which county a town belongs to comes from 2020 Census blocks: a town is linked to every county that holds a meaningful part of its land area. "Nearby towns" are the closest town pages in the same state, measured in a straight line between the Census Bureau's 2024 Gazetteer center points, not by road.

When we publish a page

• A town page needs enough FCC locations and Census households for its data to be meaningful, and at least one non-satellite provider available in at least some areas. Smaller places are covered by their county and state pages, and the ZIP code lookup sends you there.
• Before publishing, software compares every town page in a state with every other one. If two pages are too similar (85 in 100 of their five-word phrases match, or their providers and technologies are all but identical), the smaller place is held back rather than published as a near-copy.

Limits of the data

• These are FCC filings for whole areas, not address-level availability. A provider listed as available in a town may not serve your street. Check your address on the FCC National Broadband Map or call us.
• Provider filings can overstate coverage, and the FCC map is updated twice a year, so recent build-outs or closures may not appear.
• Places do not always match how people describe where they live; a mailing address may use a nearby town's name.
• We do not publish prices on these pages because prices change often and differ by address.

Last updated October 9, 2026.