The Broadband Data Collection, or BDC, is the Federal Communications Commission’s new system for collecting information from Internet service providers about the technology types, speeds, and other characteristics of broadband services that are available at each “broadband serviceable location”, or BSL, in the U.S,.
The BDC is the basis of the FCC’s new Broadband Map, which is supposed to enable officials and consumers to determine all the broadband providers serving any particular business or dwelling, and exactly what technologies and speeds each provider claims to offer. Providers are required to file updated BDC data twice a year.
BDC data is available to download from the FCC Broadband Map website.
In its most recent semi-annual Broadband Data Collection filing to the FCC, AT&T provided information about its available fixed Internet services, as of 6/30/23, for approximately 409,000 “broadband serviceable locations” (BSLs) in Cuyahoga County.
AT&T’s BSL data doesn’t distinguish between commercial and residential locations, and many BSLs (which usually, but not always, correspond to street addresses) include multiple dwelling units. So its BSL data is not comprehensive household data.
But the data does provide specific information about the broadband technologies and speeds that AT&T is able to offer to a potential customer at each individual location it can serve in the city, in most cases by address. Each location has a unique ten-digit numerical identifier, or Location ID. There’s also a 15-digit Census block “geoidentifier” (FIPS code) for each location.
How CYC obtained AT&T’s BDC data for Cleveland
To perform this analysis, Connect Your Community downloaded the two BDC data files containing the reported optical fiber and copper broadband service datapoints for the state of Ohio for June 30, 2023. Then:
1. We filtered each of those statewide files…
first, for broadband serviceable locations reported by AT&T, and
second, for locations with Census block codes in Cuyahoga County (i.e. block codes starting with “39035…”)
2. This produced…
a) a datasheet of locations in the county where AT&T reported it can provide fiber broadband service, with a technology code (50), advertised maximum fiber download and upload speeds, and Census block code for each location; and
b) a datasheet of locations in the county where AT&T reported it can provide copper (i.e. digital subscriber line, or DSL) broadband service, with a technology code (10), the advertised maximum copper download and upload speeds, and Census block code for each location.
3. We combined these two datasheets into a single datasheet of Cuyahoga County locations reported by AT&T, including a large number of duplicates (BSLs reported for both fiber and DSL service offerings).
4. We used spreadsheet functions to identify the highest technology code associated with each Location ID, and then deleted all duplicate Location IDs associated with lower technology codes.
This left us with a single datasheet of about 409,000 broadband serviceable locations in the county reported by AT&T, with the Location ID, highest reported technology code (fiber or DSL), fastest advertised download and upload speed, and 15-digit Census “block geoidentifier” for each location. It looks like this:
What AT&T’s BDC data tells us
Each line of this datasheet has information for a single unique location with an AT&T fiber or copper Internet connection, or which could be connected quickly (i.e. is “serviceable”).
The Location ID is a unique number assigned to each “serviceable location” by the BDC system. The Census “block geoidentifier”, or FIPS code, consists of two digits for the state (39=Ohio), three digits for the county (035=Cuyahoga), six digits for a tract within that county, one digit for a block group within that tract, and three digits for a block within that block group. So the first data line above tells us that BDC Location ID 1365002306 is a home or business in Census Tract 1011.01, Block Group 2, Block 002 in Cuyahoga County, Ohio.
The technology code tells us whether the location has a fiber optic connection (tech code 50), or still relies on an older DSL connection (tech code 10).
There are 221,244 locations with technology code 50, indicating available fiber service.
All of these locations are shown with advertised download and upload speed speeds of at least 1,000 megabit per second (Mbps), which is the same as 1 gigabit per second (Gbps). 160,757 locations are shown with maximum advertised download and upload speeds of 5,000 Mbps (5 Gbps). The rest are shown with 1,000 Mbps speeds. (All AT&T fiber service is symmetric, which means its download and upload speeds are the same.)
AT&T began deploying residential and small business fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) infrastructure in Cuyahoga County in 2015, and completed the vast majority of this deployment by 2019, though there has been some additional fiber deployment in the last three years.
The remaining 188,142 locations have technology code 10, indicating that their fastest available wireline service is still delivered over copper connections. In this case, “copper” means a type of digital subscriber line, or DSL, service.
There are two main types of DSL service being offered to AT&T residential and small business customers in Cuyahoga County: VDSL (deployed between 2007 and 2013) and ADSL (deployed before 2007).
While the BDC technology code doesn’t indicate which generation of DSL technology is available at each location, the speed tier information does.
VDSL service (deployed between 2007 and 2013) is delivered to customers through a fiber connection from the AT&T central office to a switching cabinet in the customer’s neighborhood, where optical data is converted to electronic signals by a switching device in the cabinet, and then sent on to the customer over copper wires. Since there’s very little “line loss” in fiber optic transmission, VDSL’s shorter distance from fiber to customer, compared to old-style ADSL, means significantly better data delivery and faster speeds. (The V in VDSL stands for “very high bit rate”)
AT&T’s VDSL locations have “maximum advertised download speeds” of 25 Mbps or more, and advertised upload speeds of 5 Mbps or more. In AT&T’s BDC data, these are categorized in four tiers: 25 down/5 up, 50 down/10 up, 75 down/20 up, or 100 down/20 up.
There are 123,954 locations in the county with maximum advertised speeds in the VDSL tiers, including 20,279 locations in the fastest tier (100 Mbps down/20 Mbps up).
With ADSL service (deployed before 2007), the customer’s data is switched from fiber to copper at the central office – often two or three miles from the customer – and then transmitted the rest of the way over copper lines. The resulting data upload and download speeds at the customer premises are much slower than VDSL.
ADSL locations have advertised download speeds below 25 Mbps down and 5 Mbps up. Following the BDC filing instructions, a location where AT&T offers speeds of at least 10 Mbps down and 1 Mbps up, but less than 25 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up, is simply listed as 10 down/1 up; while any speed combination slower than 10 Mbps down and 1 Mbps up is listed as 0 down/0 up.
There are 64,188 Cuyahoga County locations with maximum advertised speeds in the ADSL tiers, including 35,729 locations in the lowest-speed tier (less than 10 Mbps down and 1 Mbps up).
Restating all that as a chart:
City of Cleveland data
Since each location entry in our county datasheet includes a unique Census geoidentifier, it was simple to extract all the entries for locations in Cleveland city Census tracts and create a separate datasheet for the city.
Here are the resulting totals for AT&T locations in the city of Cleveland:
