Pennsylvania School District Census Block Level Internet Service Maps

The map shows "served" areas based on FCC information. Under federal rules, a census block is considered "served" with broadband if one location in that census block has service. Other locations in the census block without broadband will be listed as served even though that location may not have broadband at that FCC speed.

The map shows "unserved" areas in which no location has service and no unsubsidized competitor is present. The unsubsidized competitor is typically, but not always, a cable provider. The cable providers deploy their network for broadband in Pennsylvania under local franchise agreements.

The map is different from the Auction 904 map. The Auction 904 map shows only unserved areas within the "low cost" and "high cost" benchmarks used for the upcoming FCC auction of $16b to serve unserved, primarily rural and tribal, areas. There are other areas that do not come within the Auction 904 "benchmarks" but are unserved. The school district map includes all unserved areas, including those not shown on the Auction 904 map. The unserved areas that are not on the Auction 904 map are about 50% of the areas without broadband. Many of them are below the "low price" support set by the FCC in their benchmarks for the upcoming Auction 904.

The map shows all areas currently without broadband at 25 megabits per second down and 3 megabits per second up. This is called "25/3" and is the FCC federal definition of what constitutes broadband service at the current time. The 25/3 broadband speed is also referred to as the "Netflix Speed" because it is the minimum speed deemed optimal for getting quality streaming content of data, video, and audio.

The 'Households' data set provided refers to 2010 US census data.

Penn State Extension is working hard to raise awareness of Broadband internet access need within Pennsylvania and to provide bidders and legislators with information related to Broadband. If you have questions about how to use the map or about Broadband within Pennsylvania, please contact Harry Crissy.