The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently released data on fixed broadband access. The data are at the census tract level across the entire United States. Below are maps of the data for the Atlanta Metro region–showing the spatial patterns of access. The first map provides a baseline overview of access to fixed broadband of at least 200 kbps. At this connection speed, it takes roughly 12 hours to download a 1 GB file (the size of a typical standard definition movie). As the first map shows, household access to a fixed Internet connection of at least 200 kbps is distributed rather evenly across the metro region with the very notable exceptions of the west-side and south-side neighborhoods in the City of Atlanta and of the core centers of several suburban counties. In these areas, close to half of all households lack an Internet connection that meets this most basic threshold of access speed.

Fixed Broadband Connections Over 200 Kbps

This second map gives a look at access levels with a much higher speed threshold than that assessed on the first map. Below, the color of the census tracts corresponds to the number of households (per thousand households) with a fixed broadband connection of at least 10 Mbps*. At this connection speed, a 1 GB video file would take about 14 minutes to download. Access at this faster connection speed is most prevalent in the counties of Cobb, Forsyth, Gwinnett, and in the northern part of Fulton County. Highspeed access is lacking in southwest Atlanta, as well as in a number of neighborhoods in DeKalb County and northern Clayton County, and also in the most rural portions of exurban metro counties.