How to use National Broadband Map

The National Broadband Map (NBM) is a searchable and interactive website that allows users to view broadband availability across every neighborhood in the United States.

Start simple from the homepage

Find

Enter your home address and click FIND BROADBAND. The search results will present a small map showing the area you have selected, along with detailed information about the broadband options in that area.

The results will include each provider's name, its advertised broadband speed and the type of technology it uses. You have the opportunity to provide us feedback if you agree or disagree with information you see.

Explore

You can click EXPLORE THE MAP from the homepage to see the whole country, and pan, zoom, and query broadband data for any geographic area. Click on Map Gallery to see some of the many maps which can be produced with the NBM site.

Analyze

Select ANALYZE THE DATA from the homepage to access a rich set of tools to allow detailed reporting of broadband availability, nationwide, or by State. Further refinement allows you to break down data by county, Congressional District, MSA, and other geographies. For example:

• From the homepage, click ANALYZE THE DATA.
• Click Summarize
• 1. Select Geography: such as county
• 2. Choose the state from the drop-down list.
• 3. Enter a Geography which corresponds to 1 above, such as a county name.
• Click Summarize.

The results will display the number of wireline providers, wireless providers, broadband technology options in this area, and much more.

Get Technical

The NBM is based on open protocols to allow interested programmers and organizations free access to our tools and data.

More Detail

Search: The search function allows users to view a list of broadband providers and speeds advertised for an area. If a user inputs an address, the list that is returned will provide information for the census block in which an address is located. To more accurately present broadband availability information in large census blocks, search results for addresses located in census blocks that are greater than two square miles will only include broadband providers for the road segment in which the address is located. Please note that if a broadband provider offers service in one portion of a census block or road segment, but not in all portions of that block or segment, then the results will still include that provider.


Analyze: The Analyze section of the NBM provides access to the Rank and Summarize tools, as well as access to popular reports for download.

From the Analyze page, click on Rank, Summarize to develop a custom analysis of broadband data, or click on one of the most visited geography links to see the results of a previous query.

Rank: Use the Rank tool to compare broadband availability in different areas. Users can compare all States across the country, or compare counties and other features within a particular state.

To use the Rank tool:

• Select Geography: Choose features either within the Nation or within a State. The State features will prompt the user to select the desired state.
• Select Metric: The metric determines what will be compared across the geography chosen in 1 above. The metrics are: speed (upload and download speed options for broadband service in the selected area, technology (Wireline and Wireless are combined by default), # of service providers (all providers are combined by default) and demographic. For speed, technology, and # of service providers, a "More Options" link will appear to allow the user to adjust the query for targeted results. The demographic includes option for age, income, education, race and population).
• Click Generate the List. The results will appear.

The Rank results page allows the user to Change Geography, Rank a Geography from a list, or Manage Metrics to add or change the query results columns.

The results page will use a persistent URL (web address), which will allow users to bookmark, copy, or share the results page for future reference.

Summarize: Use the Summarize tool to create an overview of broadband availability by a selected geography (Nation, Native Nation, State, County, Congressional District, MSA, etc.).

To use the Summarize tool:

• 1. Select Geography: Nationwide provides data on the whole country. Other Geographies will prompt the user to enter further details
• 2. Select State or Nation: For State, choose from a drop down list. For Nation, enter Native Nation (see list here).
• 3. Enter Geography: This will depend on the selections in 1., so for example, counties, the user enters a county name of interest.
• 4. Click Summarize. The results will appear.

The summarize results page will display full details of broadband availability for the selected area, as well as demographics, user contributed broadband speed test results, Community Anchor Institutions, and a breakdown of BTOP funding recipients in the area.

The results page will use a persistent URL (web address), which will allow users to bookmark, copy, or share the results page for future reference.

Map: The map section of the website allows users to see a visual depiction of broadband availability, speed and technology in their communities or across the country. Visitors can currently view availability at the census block level. Very shortly, the maps will be searchable by road segment in larger census blocks.

Share your results: With the NBM, it is simple to share your map, search results, or analysis. The URL of any results page will be available indefinitely. So you can send to a friend, put in a report, or click on Share at any page to use with social networking tools, like Facebook and Twitter.

Data: We hope that people will find the NBM map useful and informative, but we also hope that people will use the data in new and interesting ways. Every feature of this website is accessible to developers using open protocols (developers see this page), visitors can download results of queries by clicking "Export Data." If you want more data, you can also download the entire dataset.