The key to success with digital opportunity lies in one fundamental principle: data-driven planning.
We must use comprehensive data to understand precisely where the gaps are, where new gaps are forming, why they exist, and how to close the gaps.
The Hard Truth: What the Data Shows Today
While national broadband access has improved significantly, key metrics from 2025 reveal that disparities still exist, driven by a combination of geography and socioeconomic factors. The Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program is poised to significantly improve today’s needs. However, this progress masks the persistent reality for the millions of locations that still lack adequate service not necessarily for lack of technology.
Furthermore, new data from sources like the digital opportunity gap. Recent data from 2024 indicates that 43% of low-income households (those earning $50,000 or less annually) struggle with broadband affordability, with 62% of these households able to afford only $25 or less per month for internet, and 40% unable to afford any cost for home internet. While internet subscription rates have risen, a significant portion of low-income households and those in rural areas still lack home internet. This underscores that ongoing and changing issues that are not just about building infrastructure, but also about ensuring affordability and promoting digital literacy. Data driven planning is essential to tackle these ongoing issues.
By 2035, the projected broadband speeds in the U.S. are likely to be:
-Urban/Suburban Areas: 1 Gbps download / 1 Gbps upload as the norm, with 10 Gbps plans available for premium users.
-Rural Areas: 200–500 Mbps download / 50–200 Mbps upload, with improvements driven by fixed wireless and satellite.
BEAD solutions today will not meet tomorrow’s needs and the adoption gap will still exist. To say that BEAD investment is a once in a lifetime program expects that you have a 10-year life expectancy. Clearly, data driven planning cannot cease as long as internet expectations increase over time.
Why Continue Broadband Planning
“If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.” -Jim Rohn
The same can be said for broadband. If communities and states abandon data driven planning, the ISPs will choose what they think is best for communities. Similarly, ISPs must be aware of the idiosyncrasies of their communities and adapt their programs to match present and future growth.
Planning with Data
“Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion.” -W. Edwards Deming
Prior to the BEAD program, many states and communities had developed their own programs for collecting data and planning for broadband expansion and digital opportunity. One of the most successful models was the creation of Broadband Action Teams (BAT teams) which involved locally sourced needs and data. When the BEAD program came forward with the mandated reliance on the FCC broadband map, many local initiatives were canceled or put on hold. With BEAD settling down into the award stage, with the ongoing need for planning, it would be a good idea for states and communities to re-invent their planning activities to ensure that local needs will be met in the future.
Data from the Federal level is often delayed, questionable, and of unknown sourcing, which means its reliability is defined by the methods as much as by the content. With local planning, the data can become immediate and sourcing is clearly defined. Taking a time out from data collection is fine, but failing to restart data collection will ultimately result in failing to solve the emerging future problems, without the means to either know what gaps have emerged, or how to approach and fix emerging problems.
Data driven planning is essential for addressing broadband access and adoption gaps, using comprehensive data from sources like the NTIA to identify disparities and solutions. Despite progress, 2024 data shows 43% of low-income households face affordability issues, underscoring the need for ongoing planning to tackle cost and digital literacy barriers. By 2035, urban broadband speeds are projected to reach 1 Gbps symmetrical and rural speeds 200–500 Mbps download, but continuous local data collection, such as through Broadband Action Teams, is critical to meet future ongoing needs.
Tools like OptiMap® make this ongoing planning more efficient and actionable. By bringing together local data on broadband access, affordability, and adoption, OptiMap® helps communities and states identify precise digital opportunity gaps and create project areas grounded in real needs. OptiMap® empowers decision-makers with immediate, transparent, and community-specific insights and ensures that digital opportunity planning continues long after BEAD and adapts to the evolving expectations of broadband users.