Last updated: August 19, 2026. Every figure on this page is computed from provider-filed FCC Broadband Data Collection (BDC) records across the 29 U.S. markets FiberNear tracks. Sample size is disclosed next to every statistic.
The one-paragraph answer. Across 29 tracked U.S. markets in 2026, residential fiber internet reached a median 64.2% of serviceable locations and business fiber reached 61.8%, computed from FCC Broadband Data Collection filings. The highest-availability market for residential fiber in the wider FCC BDC extract is Kansas City, MO at 93.5%; the lowest is Baltimore, MD at 13.2%. Business fiber leads residential in 17 of 29 markets and trails in 11, with the spread concentrated in a handful of cities running both directions.
How available is fiber internet in the U.S. in 2026?
Across the 29 U.S. markets FiberNear tracks, weighted by FCC-reported serviceable-location count, the median residential fiber availability is 64.2% and the median business fiber availability is 61.8% (n = 29). Source: FiberNear, computed from FCC Broadband Data Collection filings, 2026.
Which U.S. cities have the highest fiber availability in 2026?
- Kansas City, MO, residential fiber availability 93.5%, the highest in the tracked set. Google Fiber launched here first, in 2011. Source: FCC BDC, 2026.
- Miami, FL, business fiber availability 94.5%, the highest in the tracked set. Source: FCC BDC, 2026.
Which U.S. cities have the lowest fiber availability in 2026?
- Baltimore, MD, residential fiber availability 13.2%, the lowest of any large U.S. city in the tracked set. Source: FCC BDC, 2026.
- Detroit, MI, residential fiber availability 22.4%, the second-lowest. Source: FCC BDC, 2026.
- Long Beach, CA, business fiber availability 13.4% against residential 68.4%, a 54.9-point shortfall. FiberNear flags this as a probable filing artifact rather than a real market condition, based on how the market compares to peers of similar size. Source: FCC BDC with FiberNear caveat.
- Tampa, FL, business fiber availability 20.7% against residential 75.4%, a similar shortfall likely reflecting how Tampa providers filed. Source: FCC BDC with FiberNear caveat.
Does business fiber lead or trail residential fiber in the U.S. in 2026?
- Business fiber runs ahead of residential in 17 of 29 tracked markets (58.6%).
- Business fiber runs behind residential in 12 of 29 tracked markets (41.4%).
- 22 of 28 comparable markets sit within 10 percentage points either way. Divergence is concentrated in a handful of cities and runs both directions.
- The pattern is not regional. Northeast/Mid-Atlantic markets like Boston (+26.3 pts) and New York (+20.3) run business ahead, but so do Sun Belt markets including Houston, Dallas, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, and Detroit. No clean geographic generalization survives the 29-market sample.
How many providers file fiber availability with the FCC in 2026?
FiberNear tracks 26 providers across the 29 markets, split by class: fiber, cable, copper, wireless, satellite, and reseller. Provider brand names differ from the corporate parent names on file with the FCC. Verified corporate-parent mappings from the BDC provider list:
- Google Fiber files as Google LLC.
- Ziply Fiber files as Northwest Fiber.
- Brightspeed files as Connect Holding II.
- Astound Broadband files as Radiate Holdings.
- TDS Telecom files as Telephone and Data Systems.
- Kinetic by Windstream files as Uniti Group.
Three brands frequently assumed to be in national data sets are absent from BDC filings under any spelling: UTOPIA, Lumos, and Segra.
What are the peer medians across FiberNear’s 29 tracked markets?
- Residential fiber availability, median: 64.2% (n = 29).
- Business fiber availability, median: 61.8% (n = 29).
- These medians replace an earlier peer-median snapshot of 68.7% residential and 64.8% business that was based on the first 14 tracked markets. Expanding to 29 markets pulled both medians down as lower-availability large cities were added.
How much U.S. fiber deployment is there in 2026?
- More than 100 million U.S. homes now have fiber passing them, roughly 60% of households. Source: Fiber Broadband Association, 2026 report at Fiber Connect.
- 11.8 million U.S. homes got fiber added in 2025, a record the industry expects to break again in 2026. Source: Fiber Broadband Association / RVA LLC 2025 North American FTTH Deployment and Market Update.
- $42.45 billion in federal BEAD funding has been allocated across all 50 states, D.C., and the U.S. territories to reach an estimated 8.5 million unserved and underserved locations. Source: NTIA / BroadbandUSA.
- Top four BEAD state awards: Texas $3.3 billion, California $1.9 billion, Missouri $1.7 billion, Michigan $1.6 billion. Source: NTIA state allocation announcement, June 2023.
- 54 of 56 eligible entities had received NTIA approval of their BEAD Final Proposals as of May 2026. Source: NTIA.
How does the U.S. broadband subscriber base split between fiber and cable in 2026?
- Cable holds roughly 60% of U.S. broadband subscriptions as of mid-2026, still the single largest technology, but its share is declining as fiber footprints expand and 5G fixed wireless takes share from cable’s urban and suburban strongholds. Source: BroadbandSearch industry data / Leichtman Research Group quarterly reports.
- Fixed wireless has driven the majority of net U.S. broadband subscriber additions in recent quarters, per Leichtman Research Group quarterly tracking.
- Median U.S. fixed broadband download speed: around 307 Mbps in 2026, per Ookla’s Speedtest Global Index; median upload around 56 Mbps.
- Fiber vs cable upload gap: a typical 1 Gbps fiber plan delivers 940+ Mbps upload; a typical 1 Gbps cable plan delivers around 35 Mbps upload. The download numbers look similar, the upload gap does not. Source: Ookla reporting, Fierce Network coverage.
- Fastest U.S. fiber provider by average measured download: AT&T Fiber at 374.75 Mbps average, per Ookla Speedtest data (2026). Source: Fiber Broadband Association / Ookla.
Methodology and sample size
- Source data: FCC Broadband Data Collection (BDC) provider filings, most recent release available at publish date.
- Two overlapping samples: peer medians and the business-vs-residential spread are computed across the 29 U.S. markets FiberNear publishes per-city pages for. Highest and lowest availability figures (Kansas City, Baltimore, Miami, Long Beach, Tampa, Detroit) also draw on our full 220-place FCC BDC extract, which includes larger markets tracked in data but not yet published as per-city pages.
- Sample: 29 U.S. markets FiberNear tracks. Markets were selected purely by serviceable-location count from a 60,000-location floor across the 220 largest U.S. places; no keyword-difficulty or search-volume weighting.
- Measure: residential fiber availability = share of serviceable residential locations in the market with at least one fiber provider on file. Business fiber availability = same measure for business-marked locations (BDC field
biz_res = B). - What we do not publish: provider-brand-level fiber coverage percentages (the BDC summary files do not carry per-brand-technology breakouts, and FiberNear treats that limit as binding). We also do not publish Ookla Speedtest per-market speeds because Speedtest Open Data ships under a NonCommercial, ShareAlike license.
- Refresh cadence: the 29-market medians and per-market figures are refreshed every FCC BDC release (approximately semiannual) and any time a new market is added to the site. The title year is swapped every January.
How do I check if fiber is available at my address in 2026?
Availability at a specific address is not the same as market-wide availability, and none of the peer medians above will tell you whether your street is served. FiberNear’s free address checker pulls live availability for your exact location; the business fiber page explains how the business-side numbers differ.
Citing this page
Journalists and researchers are welcome to cite these figures. Please link to fibernear.com/fiber-internet-statistics and note the source as “FiberNear, computed from FCC Broadband Data Collection filings, 2026 (n = 29 U.S. markets).” A methodology question or a request for the underlying per-market spreadsheet can go to hello [at] fibernear.com.