Ookla recently published a report that compares broadband connectivity and performance in each state. The report highlights the percentage of broadband customers who are receiving broadband speeds that meet the FCC’s definition of broadband of 100/20 Mbps.  This is also the speed threshold being used for the $42.5 billion BEAD grant program, which is supposed to provide grants to every part of the country that can’t achieve 100/20 Mbps. Ookla is the largest and most commonly used speed test in the country and receives millions of tests each day, so these comparisons are based on huge numbers of speed tests.

The Ookla results are interesting and give states a way to compare themselves to peer states. Connecticut, North Dakota, Maryland, Delaware, Rhode Island, and Tennessee had the highest percentage of speed tests that met the 100/20 Mbps threshold. downstream and 20 Mbps upstream. Each state had over 62% of speed tests faster than 100/20 Mbps – with Connecticut at 65.8% and Tennessee at 62.2%.

Ookla also got more granular in its analysis. For example, the analysis compared average speed tests result in each state for urban and rural broadband customers. There is a map in the report that industry folks are going to want to explore. This comparison produced some interesting results:

• Connecticut, which has the overall highest percentage of homes receiving 100/20 Mbps had 72.4% of urban households and 62.3% of rural households receiving that speed. Number two overall fastest was North Dakota which had 69.7% urban and 64.6% rural.
• The state with the biggest urban/rural digital divide was Washington, with 61.1% of urban households and only 28.7% or rural households receiving 100/20 Mbps.
• South Carolina has a higher percentage of rural homes receiving fast speeds (56.4%) than urban homes (55.1%). The other states where urban and rural broadband performance is similar are North Dakota and Nevada.
• Some of the most populous states had low rural broadband speeds including Illinois (38.7%), New York (39.4%), and California (40.1%).
• The states with the lowest percentage of rural homes meeting 100/20 Mbps are also the least densely populated – Alaska (17.3%), Montana (20.8%), and Wyoming (25.3%).
• The other states with percentage of rural broadband coverage under 40% include New Mexico (29.4%), Wisconsin (31.4%), Oregon (32.2%), Idaho (34.1%), Michigan (37.5%), and Maine (37.6%). These are the states that will require a heavy life from BEAD grants.
• Some states are probably surprising to those outside of the industry. The best example is Mississippi, which historically had poor broadband coverage. However, the analysis shows urban coverage at 62.3% and rural at 56.6%. There is a lot of industry derision aimed at the RDOF program, but that program enabled rural electric coops in the state to build fiber.
• Finally, a few states showed big improvement between the first two quarters and 2023 and the first two quarters in 2024. The states with the biggest improvements are New Mexico (50%), Arizona, (45%), Minnesota (38%), and Nevada (37%).

Anybody who looks closely at speed test results will quickly understand that any given speed test might not be accurate because of issues inside a home. A home might receive adequate broadband, but an old or underperforming WiFi router might lower the speed delivered to devices. WiFi is also subject to distance and interference issues, and computers located at the far end of a house might receive significantly slower speeds.

However, when taken in mass, speed tests provide an accurate comparison – if you assume that WiFi is a problem everywhere. This means is that every state actually has a higher percentage of homes that receive 100/20 Mbps than shown by the Ookla numbers. However, the relative differences between states, or between urban and rural parts of states are believable.