Locality Broadband Access - Equity at a Glance

Usability and Accessibility: The dashboard below includes information regarding broadband access for the selected locality. Use the navigation menu on the left side panel to access the dashboard and information for other topic areas at the Virginia or Locality level. The dashboards include text captions for charts and tables that are accessible to screen readers. For each chart or table, you can also access the underlying data by clicking on the links in the Data and Documentation section. For more information on measure definitions, data sources, and data notes, see the collapsible sections below each dashboard.

Metric Descriptions

Metric	Description	Source	Data Published
Households with Any Broadband Subscription	The number of households with any type of broadband internet subscription, regardless of internet speed, including cellular data plans, satellite internet service, and broadband cables such as fiber optic. Percent of households represents the proportion of households in the selected locality with any broadband subscription.	US Census Bureau 2019 5-year American Community Survey	December 2020
Population Unserved by Broadband Access	The population unserved by broadband access is defined by the Federal Communications Commission and calculated as the percent of people living in Census blocks with internet provider-advertised speeds of less than 25 Megabits per second (Mbps) download and 3 Mbps upload speeds.	FCC 904 Eligible Area List FCC Broadband Availability Map	October 2020
Average Number of Internet Providers Per Locality	The number of consumer internet providers available in the given area, per the Federal Communications Commission.	FCC Broadband Deployment	April 2021
Population with Computer Access & Broadband	The population living in households with computer access and broadband. A household has computer access if anyone in the household owns or uses a computer, including a desktop or laptop, a smartphone, a tablet or other portable wireless computer, or some other type of computer. A household has broadband if any member of the household has a broadband internet subscription, regardless of internet speed.	US Census Bureau 2019 5-year American Community Survey	December 2020

Data Notes

Notes	Description
FCC Broadband Coverage	Federal Communication Commission datasets overstate coverage. If an internet provider’s service is utilized by at least one address inside of a census block, which may range up to 117 square miles in size, the FCC allows that provider to list that census block as fully covered by their service.
Number of Internet Providers	The Number of Internet Providers is calculated from Federal Communications Commission Form 477 data which provides Census Block level information all broadband service providers that offer service to at least one address in the area. The unique provider ID’s were used to identify the number of unique consumer service providers operating in each locality.
Access to Broadband	Access to broadband is based solely on technical infrastructure availability and does not consider broadband affordability for a person or household.
Margin of Error: US Census Bureau 2019 5-year American Community Survey Data	American Community Survey (ACS) estimates are based on a sample and are subject to sampling error, meaning that the true value is expected to be within a range. For simplicity and in accord with how Census data is presented elsewhere, only the estimate is presented and not the range of possible values. For more information on the ranges, see the ACS Methodology.
Margin of Error for Race/Ethnicity Data: US Census Bureau 2019 5-year American Community Survey Data	Data is only displayed for Asian, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, and White races/ethnicities. Data for American Indian/Alaskan Native, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, and other races/ethnicities is not included due to high margins of error from small survey sample populations for these groups. As a result, data for these races/ethnicities cannot be displayed with confidence in their accuracy. These groups are not excluded for lack of importance. For more information about additional races/ethnicities, visit the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey.
Methodology: US Census Bureau 2019 5-year American Community Survey Data	The following links provide additional information to better understand the US Census Bureau 2019 5-year American Community Survey data: Questions on the ACS form and why we ask ACS Methodology
Locality Margin of Error	Each locality view displays information for which the data meets a certain level of confidence in the sample size and margin of error for survey-based data. In many instances, data elements at the locality level have samples sizes too small for sources to accurately report. As a result, several locality level data elements are shown with null values.