99.99173%Served at 100/20
97.4%Ground infrastructure
40.6%Fiber available
66.6%Gigabit available

California

State 06 FCC data as of 2025-12-31

Total broadband serviceable units: 16,283,265

Satellite is doing 2.6% of the work here

The headline says 99.99173% served, but only 97.4% has ground infrastructure at the benchmark. That gap is about 424,879 broadband serviceable units whose only reported option at 100/20 is satellite.

  • Satellite reaches almost everywhere, so a headline that includes it approaches 100% nearly everywhere and stops distinguishing places.
  • Availability is not capacity. Satellite constellations share bandwidth across all subscribers in a cell, so advertised speed is not a guarantee the whole reported population could be served at once.
  • Latency, weather sensitivity, data policies, and equipment cost differ materially from wired service, and none of them appear in this dataset.
  • Funding and policy programmes frequently treat satellite-only locations as unserved for their own purposes. Check the programme's own definition rather than this headline.

Who can get what

100.0% Served at 100/20 Underserved

Shares of all broadband serviceable units in the total partition, residential class.

Headline versus ground truth

Any technology 100.0% Ground infrastructure 97.4% Satellite only 2.6%
Coverage at the benchmark by lens
LensShareUnits
Any technology, including satellite99.99173%16,281,918
Ground infrastructure only97.4%15,857,039
Satellite is the only option at the benchmark2.6%424,879

Coverage by speed tier

0.2/0.2 Mbps 100.0% 10/1 Mbps 100.0% 25/3 Mbps 100.0% 100/20 Mbps 100.0% 250/25 Mbps 100.0% 1000/100 Mbps 66.6%
Cumulative coverage by speed tier
TierShareEstimated units
0.2/0.2 Mbps 100.0% 16,283,265
10/1 Mbps 100.0% 16,283,265
25/3 Mbps 100.0% 16,283,265
100/20 Mbps 99.99173% 16,281,918
250/25 Mbps 99.9871% 16,281,157
1000/100 Mbps 66.6% 10,837,681

Tiers are cumulative: a unit counted at a higher tier is also counted at every lower tier, so these rows must not be summed.

Fiber and upload capability

Fiber 40.6% Cable 90.3% Gigabit (1000/100) 66.6%

The published summary reports six fixed download/upload pairs and no symmetric tier above 0.2/0.2 Mbps, so symmetric service cannot be measured from it directly. Upload capability is shown through the highest tier, which requires 100 Mbps upstream, and fiber is reported separately because it is the technology that typically delivers matched speeds. A symmetric share is derivable from the FCC location-level availability files, which carry each location's advertised upload speed, but that product is roughly 973 million rows per vintage and is not ingested here.

Every technology

NGSO Satellite 100.0% Cable 90.3% Licensed Fixed Wireless 64.0% Fiber 40.6% Unlicensed Fixed Wireless 25.7% Copper 7.3% GSO Satellite 0.0% Other 0.0%

How this compares

Ranked 6 of 15 within Nation US on any terrestrial coverage at the benchmark.

median 96.7% lowest 81.3% highest 99.8%

Ranking deliberately uses ground infrastructure rather than the headline. Satellite reaches nearly everywhere, so ranking on it puts most areas at 100% and separates nothing.

Reporting providers (166)

Providers reporting service in this area
ProviderHolding companyResidential coverage
EchoStar Corporation EchoStar Corporation 100.0%
Viasat, Inc. Viasat, Inc. 99.99%
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. Space Exploration Technologies Corp. 99.97%
AT&T Inc. AT&T Inc. 71.7%
T-Mobile USA, Inc. T-Mobile USA, Inc. 67.0%
Verizon Communications Inc. Verizon Communications Inc. 55.6%
Charter Communications Charter Communications 47.0%
Comcast Corporation Comcast Corporation 33.7%
Frontier Communications Corporation Frontier Communications Corporation 14.0%
UnWired Broadband Holding LLC UnWired Broadband Holding LLC 13.5%
Etheric Communications, LLC. Etheric Communications, LLC. 11.0%
Cal.net, Inc. Cal.net, Inc. 9.5%
Unwired Ltd. Unwired Ltd. 9.1%
Cox Communications, Inc. Cox Communications, Inc. 8.5%
California Internet California Internet 8.4%
Starry, Inc. Starry, Inc. 4.4%
Sonic Telecom, LLC Sonic Telecom, LLC 4.3%
Radiate Holdings, LP Radiate Holdings, LP 3.6%
Cosmo Network Solutions, LLC Cosmo Network Solutions, LLC 3.6%
Ridge Wireless Inc. Ridge Wireless Inc. 2.9%
DigitalPath, Inc. DigitalPath, Inc. 2.9%
San Diego Broadband San Diego Broadband 1.9%
Succeed.Net Succeed.Net 1.9%
Sail Internet Holdings LLC Sail Internet Holdings LLC 1.8%
Southern California Telephone Company Inc. Southern California Telephone Company Inc. 1.8%
Applied Technology Group, Inc. Applied Technology Group, Inc. 1.7%
Razzolink Inc. Razzolink Inc. 1.5%
Tekify, LLC Tekify, LLC 1.5%
Fidium Holdings, LLC Fidium Holdings, LLC 1.4%
Ayera Technologies, Inc. Ayera Technologies, Inc. 1.4%
Race Telecommunications, Inc. Race Telecommunications, Inc. 1.0%
ezWave, Inc. ezWave, Inc. 1.0%
Cruzio Internet Cruzio Internet 0.9%
101Netlink 101Netlink 0.8%
Surfnet Communications Surfnet Communications 0.8%
Robinson Hardware and Software Solutions Robinson Hardware and Software Solutions 0.7%
Zeta Broadband, Inc. Zeta Broadband, Inc. 0.7%
MJM Telecom Corp. MJM Telecom Corp. 0.7%
Optimum Communications Optimum Communications 0.7%
Google LLC Google LLC 0.7%
Com-Pair Services Com-Pair Services 0.7%
Corridor Wireless LLC Corridor Wireless LLC 0.7%
WISPRENN WISPRENN 0.6%
OACYS Technology OACYS Technology 0.6%
Mediacom Communications Corp. Mediacom Communications Corp. 0.5%
ShastaBeam ShastaBeam 0.4%
Hankins Information Technology Hankins Information Technology 0.4%
IsoFusion, Inc. IsoFusion, Inc. 0.4%
SmarterBroadband, LLC SmarterBroadband, LLC 0.4%
Ting Fiber, Inc. Ting Fiber, Inc. 0.3%

Machine-readable