North Carolina
37
FCC data as of 2025-12-31
Total broadband serviceable units: 5,526,391
Satellite is doing 5.5% of the work here
The headline says 99.99797% served, but only 94.5% has ground infrastructure at the benchmark. That gap is about 303,239 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
Shares of all broadband serviceable units in the total partition, residential class.
Headline versus ground truth
| Lens | Share | Units |
|---|---|---|
| Any technology, including satellite | 99.99797% | 5,526,279 |
| Ground infrastructure only | 94.5% | 5,223,040 |
| Satellite is the only option at the benchmark | 5.5% | 303,239 |
Coverage by speed tier
| Tier | Share | Estimated units |
|---|---|---|
| 0.2/0.2 Mbps | 99.9999638% | 5,526,389 |
| 10/1 Mbps | 99.9999457% | 5,526,388 |
| 25/3 Mbps | 99.9999457% | 5,526,388 |
| 100/20 Mbps | 99.99797% | 5,526,279 |
| 250/25 Mbps | 99.99788% | 5,526,274 |
| 1000/100 Mbps | 60.9% | 3,368,149 |
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
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
How this compares
Ranked 10 of 15 within Nation US on any terrestrial coverage at the benchmark.
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 (73)
| Provider | Holding company | Residential coverage |
|---|---|---|
| EchoStar Corporation | EchoStar Corporation | 100.0% |
| Space Exploration Technologies Corp. | Space Exploration Technologies Corp. | 99.99% |
| Viasat, Inc. | Viasat, Inc. | 99.98% |
| Charter Communications | Charter Communications | 79.0% |
| T-Mobile USA, Inc. | T-Mobile USA, Inc. | 68.3% |
| AT&T Inc. | AT&T Inc. | 61.1% |
| Verizon Communications Inc. | Verizon Communications Inc. | 61.1% |
| Connect Holding II LLC | Connect Holding II LLC | 25.4% |
| Google LLC | Google LLC | 8.4% |
| North Carolina RSA 3 Cellular Telephone Company | North Carolina RSA 3 Cellular Telephone Company | 7.6% |
| Uniti Group Inc. | Uniti Group Inc. | 6.0% |
| Skyrunner, Inc. | Skyrunner, Inc. | 5.7% |
| Optimum Communications | Optimum Communications | 5.0% |
| Metronet Holdings, LLC | Metronet Holdings, LLC | 4.2% |
| Wilkes Telephone Membership Corporation | Wilkes Telephone Membership Corporation | 3.5% |
| Frontier Communications Corporation | Frontier Communications Corporation | 3.1% |
| Atlantic Telephone Membership Corporation | Atlantic Telephone Membership Corporation | 2.6% |
| Ripple Fiber, LLC | Ripple Fiber, LLC | 1.8% |
| Telephone and Data Systems, Inc. | Telephone and Data Systems, Inc. | 1.1% |
| Yadkin Valley Telephone Membership Corporation | Yadkin Valley Telephone Membership Corporation | 1.1% |
| Skyline Telephone Membership Corporation | Skyline Telephone Membership Corporation | 1.0% |
| Ting Fiber, Inc. | Ting Fiber, Inc. | 0.9% |
| Mega Broadband Investments Holdings, LLC | Mega Broadband Investments Holdings, LLC | 0.8% |
| Mediacom Communications Corp. | Mediacom Communications Corp. | 0.7% |
| Surry Telephone Membership Corporation | Surry Telephone Membership Corporation | 0.7% |
| City of Wilson | City of Wilson | 0.6% |
| Zito West Holding, LLC | Zito West Holding, LLC | 0.6% |
| Randolph Telephone Membership Corporation | Randolph Telephone Membership Corporation | 0.5% |
| Star Telephone Membership Corporation | Star Telephone Membership Corporation | 0.5% |
| Comporium, Inc. | Comporium, Inc. | 0.5% |
| eNCore Connects | eNCore Connects | 0.5% |
| French Broad Electric Membership Corporation | French Broad Electric Membership Corporation | 0.4% |
| Hotwire Communications, Ltd. | Hotwire Communications, Ltd. | 0.4% |
| Lumbee River Electric Membership Corporation | Lumbee River Electric Membership Corporation | 0.4% |
| NfinityLink Communications, Inc. | NfinityLink Communications, Inc. | 0.4% |
| Fastlink Communications Inc. | Fastlink Communications Inc. | 0.3% |
| X1 Communications Inc. | X1 Communications Inc. | 0.2% |
| StarVision, Inc. | StarVision, Inc. | 0.2% |
| Blue Ridge Mountain Electric Membership Corporation | Blue Ridge Mountain Electric Membership Corporation | 0.2% |
| e-Polk, Inc. | e-Polk, Inc. | 0.2% |
| CND Acquisition Corp. | CND Acquisition Corp. | 0.1% |
| City of Morganton | City of Morganton | 0.1% |
| Foothills Broadband LLC | Foothills Broadband LLC | 0.1% |
| HarvestBeam Inc. | HarvestBeam Inc. | 0.1% |
| BalsamWest FiberNET, LLC | BalsamWest FiberNET, LLC | 0.1% |
| Eastern Shore Communications, LLC | Eastern Shore Communications, LLC | 0.1% |
| Town of Pineville | Town of Pineville | 0.1% |
| Eastern Carolina Broadband, LLC | Eastern Carolina Broadband, LLC | 0.1% |
| Cox Communications, Inc. | Cox Communications, Inc. | 0.1% |
| Cherokee Cablevision Inc. | Cherokee Cablevision Inc. | 0.04% |