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The Internet Black Holes of the United States

h4. Denali, Alaska (Flickr / "just - jen":http://www.flickr.com/photos/whetzel/88580884/sizes/z/in/photostream/) The U.S. Commerce Dept. released a $200 million map of broadband access in the U.S., which shows that a tenth of the country lacks...

Denali, Alaska (Flickr / just – jen)

The U.S. Commerce Dept. released a $200 million map of broadband access in the U.S., which shows that a tenth of the country lacks broadband. “There are still too many people and community institutions lacking the level of broadband service needed to fully participate in the Internet economy,” said Lawrence E. Strickling, head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the arm of the Commerce Department that is overseeing the mapping project.

Not surprising perhaps, but still shocking: there are 17 census tracts with no wired or wireless Internet access at all. These are web dead zones, little revolutionary Egypts inside the U.S. Try to imagine that as you Tweet it.

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Last year, the Federal Communications Commission released a national broadband plan that set a goal of connecting 100 million U.S. households to broadband connections of 100 megabits per second — at least 20 times faster than many home connections now — by 2020.

Some lessons from the $200 million map project (thanks to MSNBC):

* Between 5 percent and 10 percent of Americans lack access to broadband access that is fast enough to handle downloads of some Web pages, photos and video or simple video conferencing services
* Two-thirds of schools surveyed have Internet connections that are slower than 25 megabits per second — well below the 50- to 100-megabit connections that state education technology directors say are needed to serve roughly 1,000 students
* Only 4 percent of libraries have connection speeds that are faster than 25 megabits
* Only 36 percent of Americans have access to wireless connections that are fast enough to be considered fourth generation, with download speeds of at least 6 megabits per second, although 95 percent of Americans have access to third-generation wireless service.

The data will help set priorities for large federal programs like the Agriculture Department’s Rural Utilities Service and the Universal Service Fund, which spend billions annually to subsidize telecom services. But it comes too late to help guide the Commerce Department and Agriculture Department, who have awarded more than $7 billion in stimulus money to pay for high-speed Internet networks and other broadband projects across the country over the past two years.

Above, a map of the Eastern seaboard. Motherboard’s neighborhood, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in the 12th congressional district of New York, ranks 26 in the nation

Meanwhile, Americans pay more for Internet access than Europeans.

See the map here, and a full list of census tracts lacking wired and wireless access in this pdf.