{"license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","dataset":"research-agenda","count":1,"updatedThrough":"2026-07-21","summary":{"decreasedCount":1,"domainCount":1,"entityCount":1,"increasedCount":0,"latestSourceAccessDate":"2026-07-21","methodCount":1,"questionCount":1,"requestCount":4,"sourceCount":1,"unchangedCount":0},"universeSummary":{"decreasedCount":26,"domainCount":5,"entityCount":32,"increasedCount":19,"latestSourceAccessDate":"2026-07-21","methodCount":7,"questionCount":46,"requestCount":184,"sourceCount":12,"unchangedCount":1},"guardrail":"Agenda questions are derived from published latest-to-prior competition signals and remain attached to their exact metric, periods, universe, and source custody. They are not ranked, scored, or treated as findings of causality, competitive harm, liability, enforcement merit, or research importance. Evidence requests describe work to collect, not evidence already established.","filters":{"direction":"all","directionMatched":true,"domain":"all","domainMatched":true,"method":"all","methodMatched":true,"query":"","question":"fixed-broadband-hhi:tract-median","questionMatched":true,"view":"question","viewMatched":true,"scope":"question","scopeMatched":true},"activeQuestionId":"fixed-broadband-hhi:tract-median","methods":[{"id":"market-mechanism","label":"Market mechanism","shortLabel":"Mechanism","detail":"Test entry, exit, switching, price, quality, capacity, and share pathways inside the declared market boundary.","metricIds":["market-hhi"],"color":"#12a8b5"},{"id":"share-accounting","label":"Share accounting","shortLabel":"Shares","detail":"Reconstruct participant-share movement while checking denominator, coverage, entry, exit, and transaction changes.","metricIds":["market-cr4","market-leader-share"],"color":"#1769e0"},{"id":"industry-disaggregation","label":"Industry disaggregation","shortLabel":"Industries","detail":"Trace a sector median back to strict six-digit Census rows before proposing a product or geographic market study.","metricIds":["industry-median-hhi"],"color":"#24a76f"},{"id":"geographic-structure","label":"Geographic structure","shortLabel":"Geography","detail":"Reconcile national and nested geographic concentration summaries with area-level distributions, provider or ownership paths, measurement boundaries, and local-market evidence.","metricIds":["state-bank-median-hhi","national-bank-deposit-hhi","fixed-broadband-hhi"],"color":"#0f766e"},{"id":"business-flow-context","label":"Business-flow context","shortLabel":"Business flows","detail":"Disaggregate national entry, exit, job-flow, and reallocation movement by sector, place, and firm age before proposing a competitive mechanism.","metricIds":["establishment-entry-rate","establishment-exit-rate","job-creation-rate","job-destruction-rate","net-job-creation-rate","reallocation-rate"],"color":"#6b5bd6"},{"id":"merger-program-context","label":"Merger program context","shortLabel":"Filings","detail":"Place HSR notification volume beside filing mix, transaction size, thresholds, exemptions, and macroeconomic context.","metricIds":["hsr-transactions"],"color":"#f39b22"},{"id":"review-process-context","label":"Review process context","shortLabel":"Review","detail":"Test whether transaction mix, clearance, adjusted denominators, or agency practice moved alongside the review rate.","metricIds":["hsr-second-request-rate"],"color":"#eb4a64"}],"rows":[{"id":"fixed-broadband-hhi:tract-median","ordinal":7,"question":"Which areas and provider-share changes account for movement in the tract median, and how wide is the distribution hidden by the median?","methodId":"geographic-structure","methodLabel":"Geographic structure","methodDetail":"Reconcile national and nested geographic concentration summaries with area-level distributions, provider or ownership paths, measurement boundaries, and local-market evidence.","evidenceRequests":["Area-level provider connection shares behind the national or median geographic HHI path.","Full state, county, or tract HHI distributions so movement in the median is not mistaken for a uniform shift.","Technology, speed-tier, entry, exit, acquisition, and subscriber-mix records for both annual anchors.","Local product, geographic, pricing, quality, switching, and availability evidence before treating a reporting area as an antitrust market."],"domain":"geographies","domainLabel":"Broadband geographies","entityId":"fixed-broadband-tract-median","entityCode":"tract-median","entityLabel":"Median census tract","metricId":"fixed-broadband-hhi","metricLabel":"Residential fixed broadband Tract median","unit":"hhi_points","priorPeriod":"Dec 2023","priorYear":2023,"priorValue":5859,"latestPeriod":"Dec 2024","latestYear":2024,"latestValue":5504,"yearsBetween":1,"delta":-355,"deltaPercent":-6.1,"direction":"decreased","observation":"Median census tract moved from HHI 5,859 in Dec 2023 to 5,504 in Dec 2024 (-355 HHI points).","interpretation":"The December 2024 tract median is lower than its December 2023 anchor. This geographic summary does not define a legal broadband market or identify why provider shares changed.","comparisonNote":"December 2024 versus December 2023 in the same FCC geographic summary. The intervening June release remains visible in the broadband atlas and is not used as the annual comparison anchor.","evidenceCount":9,"evidenceLabel":"9 FCC semiannual observations / Dec 2020-Dec 2024","confidenceLevel":"high","dataStatus":"verified","sourceCount":1,"sourceIds":["fcc-internet-access-dec-2024"],"publishers":["Federal Communications Commission"],"latestSourceAccessDate":"2026-07-21","agendaHref":"/research/agenda?question=fixed-broadband-hhi%3Atract-median#research-agenda-observatory","atlasHref":"/atlas?focus=question%3Afixed-broadband-hhi%3Atract-median&layer=research","researchProfileHref":"/research/agenda/fixed-broadband-hhi--tract-median","monitorHref":"/economy/monitor?signal=fixed-broadband-hhi%3Atract-median#competition-monitor-console","notebookHref":"/notebooks?recipe=fixed-broadband-concentration","briefingHref":"/research/briefing?signals=fixed-broadband-hhi%3Atract-median&audience=research#competition-briefing-studio","profileHref":"/geographies/broadband?scope=tract-median","explorerHref":"/geographies/broadband?scope=tract-median&period=2024-12#fixed-broadband-atlas","signalGuardrail":"The FCC series reports HHI for residential fixed connections of at least 100 Mbps downstream and 20 Mbps upstream. The national value and medians across states, counties, and census tracts describe different geographic summaries; they are not interchangeable legal market definitions, and a median does not describe the full distribution within or across areas.","agendaGuardrail":"Agenda questions are derived from published latest-to-prior competition signals and remain attached to their exact metric, periods, universe, and source custody. They are not ranked, scored, or treated as findings of causality, competitive harm, liability, enforcement merit, or research importance. Evidence requests describe work to collect, not evidence already established."}]}