That includes things that are clearly not broadband, like satellite and "3G" that has a 2GB cap. Very few homes have access to more than 2 "real" broadband providers (your choices are the cable company or the telephone company, period.)

From the report: "The terms “high-speed connections” and “broadband connections” are synonyms in this report" and defines them as 200kbps+.

We could let this devolve into a semantic argument about "broadband," "real broadband," etc. but what would be the point?

My point is that according to that 2008 FCC report, 99.7% of US zipcodes have a choice of 200kbps+ internet provider, and most have even better. This doesn't include any of the networks that have been built out since 2008, like the 4G 6Mbps network I'm using right now.

It's simply not true that "very few homes" only have high-speed internet through a cable or telephone company.

The FCC's idea that 200kbps is "broadband" is bullshit. A hard drive fedexed across-country overnight is "broadband" by that definition, but the latency makes it pretty unpalatable, don't you think?

No idea what you're getting at. Are monopolistic internet providers about to slam us all with 48 hour round trip times? Unless we let the FCC (which doesn't have a clue about what it's regulating, according to you) enforce net neutrality?

It's easy to claim 99% of the country has multiple broadband options if you count satellite as a broadband option, since theoretically everyone CONUS can get it. I don't, because of the 2 second latency.

So satellite is responsible for these coverage numbers? I don't buy it. In the report, satellite connections account for a mere 0.65% of all high-speed lines.

I realize that's not the same thing as coverage of zip codes. Unfortunately the report doesn't break out the number of non-satellite providers per zip code. But, it does break out the number of providers of different types reporting per state, and satellite provider numbers are either 0 or redacted across the board (because they're deanonymizingly low).

If you run numbers on the zipcode data for 2008 [1], 88% of US census tracts had 4+ providers, 75% had 5+ providers, and 60% had 6+ providers. It's just not plausible that satellite providers account for this.

[1] http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/Reports/FCC-State_...

Penetration of 200kbps connections is meaningless in a post-1998 world. That's not even enough to watch YouTube. Also, coverage by zip code or census tract is misleading, as large zipcodes in rural areas may count as having multiple providers, but only a small portion of the zip code actually has coverage.

In order for coverage and competition statistics to be useful, they need to keep up with modern bandwidth and latency requirements. IMO the absolute bare minimum that should be acceptable is 2mbit/s (for sub-SDTV video quality), with ping times less than 80ms. Meaningful participation in the modern digital world requires 15mbit/s or better, especially for households with more than one person.