The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) updated its national broadband survey in November 2023. NTIA has been doing broadband surveys for thirty years, with the last survey in 2021. It has some interesting results since NTIA summarizes the results differently than most other broadband surveys.

The headline finding in the survey is that broadband usage is up. NTIA says that 83% of all people older than three years old used the Internet in 2023, compared to 80% in 2021. That’s an increase of 13 million people. The NTIA survey tries to count everybody in calculating these percentages, from the young to the elderly, the homeless, and folks in group living arrangements.

The survey shows that the increase largely comes from increased use of the Internet for the segments of the population on the wrong side of the digital divide. For example, 83% of American Indians and Alaska Natives used the Internet in 2023, up from 75% in 2021. Internet usage in low-income households grew from 69% in 2021 to 72% in 2023. I have to wonder if these gains will be reversed by the end of the ACP program.

The survey also counted households with broadband and concluded that only 12% of households have no Internet connection. This compares well to an estimate I recall from the FCC last year that estimated that 87% of households have a broadband connection.

There is still a big difference in broadband connectivity based on household incomes. For example, 80% of households that made $100,000 or more had both a fixed and a mobile broadband connection. Only 54% of households with incomes under $25,000 have both.

There are a lot of people who get most or all of their Internet connectivity from smartphones. That includes 25% of Hispanics, 22% of American Indians and Alaskan Natives, and 16% of Black Americans. This contrasts with 12% of White Americans.

There is also a big gap in the percentage of homes with devices like desktops, laptops, and tablets. For example, 72% of White non-Hispanics and Asians used one of these devices in 2023 while 62% of Black Americans, 57% of American Indians and Alaskan Natives, and 54% of Hispanics used the devices.

For those who like to dig deeper into the NTIA data, like me, they have created a tool to make that easier. This tool lets you look in detail at the most recent survey results and also dig into and compare to prior years. Statistics can be displayed as a map, chart, or data table.