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http://www.broadbandmap.gov/number-of-providers/wireline/ser...

Unfortunately, the min/max slider forces hard-coded values during page load, so I can't link to specific graphs. I suggest checking out "served areas"/min:1/max:1 and "unserved areas"/min:2/max:whatever.

Those maps suggest the "1 ISP" set (or any set, really) is fairly uniformly distributed across the nation. In my opinion, it's not quite as biased towards the urban/rural divide I expected.

http://www.broadbandmap.gov/summarize/nationwide

    #ISP %USA
    0    3.3%
    1    8.9%
    2   32.0%
    3   35.6%
    4   14.3%
    5    4.1%
    6    1.3%
    7    0.4%
    8+   0.2%
So it's a minority, but a substantial one. I would also guess that at least "some" of the 2-ISP group have various barriers that make it de facto 1-ISP.

Regardless, 8.9% of the nation is still a LOT of people, and "2 or 3 providers across the nation" isn't really a thriving economy full of healthy competition.

The interesting data points, I think, are the high end. A 4-ISPs isn't THAT different from 1-ISP (8.9% vs 14.3%), and those numbers drop off fast in the 5+ range.

Oh, and yes, I'm excluding radio, in any form ("G[0-9]", various satellite/asymmetric services, etc). Those are a different product entirely, and any similarity in feature set is only superficial. You can't play games or any other low-latency task over most wireless, and VoIP doesn't like the "several second" latencies of satellite, for example.



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