Virginia Broadband Gap Explorer

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Where are Virginia's broadband gaps?

Unserved and underserved locations by county and city from the FCC Broadband Data Collection (as of Dec 31, 2025), with Virginia DHCD BEAD eligible and awarded counts. Search or click a locality.

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Sources

FCC Broadband Data Collection (BDC): fixed broadband availability, Virginia location-level files, as of Dec 31, 2025 (December 2025 filing; file version 15-Sep-2026). Served / underserved / unserved computed by Apogee from these files (see About the data).
Virginia DHCD Office of Broadband (BEAD): NTIA-approved post-challenge BEAD-eligible locations (finalized Dec 2024) and BEAD Final Proposal awarded locations (published Jan 2026), via data.virginia.gov.
U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, 2020–2024 (table-based summary file: B11001, B01003, B25001, B28002).
U.S. Census Bureau, TIGER/Line 2025 county boundaries (full resolution, clipped to shoreline) for the map; 2025 cartographic boundary places for search points.
Basemaps: Esri Light Gray Canvas (default), Dark Gray Canvas, World Imagery and World Topographic Map, with Esri reference labels. Canvas and labels: Esri, HERE, Garmin, © OpenStreetMap contributors, and the GIS user community. Imagery: Esri, Vantor, Earthstar Geographics, and the GIS User Community. Topo: Esri and its data partners (full credits in the map attribution).
Software: MapLibre GL JS, H3 (h3-js), topojson-client.

Read this first

FCC "unserved" is not the same as BEAD-eligible. The FCC counts are a Dec 2025 snapshot of provider-reported service; the DHCD lists are a Dec 2024 post-challenge eligibility list and the Final Proposal awards. Counts are broadband serviceable locations, not households. See .

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About the data

What is counted

Every location in the FCC BDC served/unserved file for Virginia (2,917,219 broadband serviceable locations, BSLs) as of Dec 31, 2025. Counts are locations, not housing units or households.

Served, underserved, unserved (BEAD-style)

Reliable service: FCC technology codes 10 (copper), 40 (cable), 50 (fiber), 71 (licensed fixed wireless) and 72 (licensed-by-rule fixed wireless), reported as low latency. Satellite (60, 61) and unlicensed fixed wireless (70) are excluded, following NTIA's BEAD definition.
Served: reliable service at 100/20 Mbps or better. Underserved: reliable service at 25/3 or better but below 100/20. Unserved: no reliable service at 25/3.
An alternative count that includes unlicensed fixed wireless and drops the latency test (the FCC "Any Terrestrial" grouping) is shown in each county card for comparison.

Providers and technologies

Provider count = distinct FCC provider IDs reporting any terrestrial fixed service in the locality at any speed (a second figure includes satellite). Top technologies and top providers are ranked by share of the locality's BSLs covered at any speed; a location can be covered by several.

% fiber

Share of the locality's BSLs where at least one provider reports fiber (technology 50) at any speed.

DHCD BEAD figures

Eligible (Dec 2024): DHCD's NTIA-approved post-challenge list of unserved and underserved locations (Fabric v3.2), assigned to localities by point-in-polygon against 2025 Census cartographic county boundaries (90 coastal points outside every polygon were snapped to the nearest county).
Awarded: DHCD's BEAD Final Proposal awarded locations, joined to the post-challenge list for coordinates (84,639 of 84,639 matched). Shown by technology: fiber, low-earth-orbit satellite, and other (cable and licensed fixed wireless).

Why FCC and DHCD counts differ

They measure different things at different times. The FCC file is a Dec 31, 2025 snapshot of provider-reported availability. The DHCD eligible list was finalized in Dec 2024 after the BEAD challenge process, and removes locations that already have enforceable funding commitments (for example VATI and RDOF). Of the 143,102 locations that are FCC-unserved in Dec 2025, 86,218 are coded "served" on the DHCD Dec 2024 list. Awarded locations are those in the Final Proposal award file, which is smaller than the eligible list.

H3 hexes

H3 resolution-8 cells (about 0.74 km² each) containing at least one unserved or underserved BSL (51,645 cells). The FCC ships an H3 cell ID on each record; hexes are drawn in the browser. Point locations are not shown (the FCC Fabric is licensed).

Households and internet use

ACS 2020–2024 5-year: households (B11001), population (B01003), housing units (B25001), and % of households with no Internet access (B28002_013 ÷ B11001_001). ACS values are survey estimates with margins of error.

Published figures (for reference, not used in the map)

NTIA BEAD Final Proposal, Virginia overview (updated 11/17/2025): 85,069 eligible BSLs. NTIA PDF
DHCD BEAD deployment fact sheet (Aug 7, 2025): 133,472 locations. DHCD PDF

Boundaries: U.S. Census TIGER/Line 2025 counties, full resolution, clipped to the shoreline. Neighbor lists use legal county adjacency from the same 2025 TIGER/Line boundaries (it matches the Census Bureau 2025 County Adjacency File), so localities that meet across a river or the Bay count as neighbors. Built by Apogee Geospatial from public data; not an official FCC, NTIA or DHCD product. Build va-broadband-20260926c.