Research

What the federal coverage filings actually show

Internet providers are required to tell the FCC where they could install service. We read those filings across 491 US cities and publish what we find, including the parts providers would rather summarise differently.

Coverage analysis · Sep 2026

The US cities where cable is still the only real wired internet

In 42 large US cities, cable reaches more than 80% of homes while fiber reaches no more than a quarter. Detroit, Baltimore and Albuquerque lead the list. Between them, 2.32 million housing units have no fiber option at all.

42 cities 2.32M homes without fiber 491 cities analysed

Using our data

Everything we publish here is derived from the FCC Broadband Data Collection, which is public. What we add is the aggregation: coverage by technology rather than by provider, at town level, across every state.

If you are a journalist, researcher, or municipal or state broadband office and you want the underlying per-city figures — or the same analysis run for a specific city, county or state that we have not published — get in touch. We will send it over at no cost. We ask only that you credit ShopHighSpeed and link to the relevant page if you publish from it.

Check your own address

The same filings, narrowed to your street.

Check now →