Broadband Census Idaho (Sidebar)

By William G. Korver, Reporter, BroadbandCensus.com

August 8 – The Federal Communications Commission states in its semi-annual report, which was released in March 2008, that a quarter of Idaho’s ZIP codes have five or more broadband providers as of June 30, 2007.

However, the FCC has since increased the definition of broadband from 200 kilobits per second (Kbps) to 768 Kbps. Consequently, some of what the FCC considered to be high-speed in June 2007 is likely no longer classified as broadband.

According to the June 2007 FCC report, the majority of Idaho ZIP codes with high-speed lines in service had either four (14 percent), five (25 percent), or six (16 percent) broadband providers. The following is the data collected by the FCC regarding the percentage of Zip codes with high-speed lines in service in Idaho as of June 2007:

Zero- 0
One- 0
Two- 1
Three- 10
Four- 14
Five- 25
Six- 16
Seven- 11
Eight- 7
Nine- 4
>=Ten- 10

The initial set of data that is listed below regards the amount of high-speed Idaho providers by technology as of June 30, 2007. The number that appears in parenthesis concerns the amount of high-speed lines per technology in Idaho. Both set of figures are from the FCC’s March 2008 report.

ADSL- 23 (129,188)
SDSL- 5 (340)
Traditional Wireline- 13 (1,507)
Cable Moden- 7 (116,273)
Fiber- 11 (635)
satellite- 1-3 (*)
fixed wireless- 12 (34,905)
mobile wireless- 1-3 (*)
power line and other- 0 (0)
Total (unduplicated)- 45 (483,049)

Of 483,049 high-speed lines in Idaho as of June 30, 2007, the FCC discovered that 275,666 were residential and 207,383 were business high-speed lines.

Hence, the overall amount of broadband lines has increased from 20,233 in June 2001 to 483,049 six years later, according to the FCC. This growth includes the increase of more than 280,000 high-speed lines from June 2006 (202,521) to June 2007 (483,049).

The percentage of residential end-user premises with access to high-speed services (xDSL availability) as of June 30, 2007 was 76 percent where state ILECs (incumbant local exchange carriers) offered local telephone service in Idaho, while 99 percent of residential end-user premises have high-speed Internet services available (cable modem) where cable systems provide cable television service.

Interestingly, the number of coaxial cable high-speed lines in Idaho actually dropped from 78,185 in June 2005 to 73, 528 in December 2005. However, in June of the following year, the number of coaxial cable high-speed lines in Idaho began to increase and has continued to do so, according to the FCC report. As of June 2007, there are 116,273 coaxial cable high-speed lines in Idaho.

Editor’s Note: The FCC states that * means data has been withheld to maintain carrier confidentiality.

Articles and Document Referenced in this Sidebar:

• With Large Underserved Areas, Idaho May Soon Deploy 300 Megabit System (BroadbandCensus.com, August 8, 2008)
• Federal Communications Commission broadband data