AR-RB-2026-06National HHI rose while median state, county, and census-tract concentration fell
Central finding
From December 2020 to December 2024, the FCC-reported national HHI for residential fixed connections of at least 100 Mbps downstream and 20 Mbps upstream rose from 1,171 to 1,501, an increase of 330 points.
The FCC series reports HHI for residential fixed connections of at least 100 Mbps downstream and 20 Mbps upstream. The national HHI and the state, county, and census-tract values are medians of separately calculated geographic HHIs. They are different summaries, not interchangeable legal market definitions. A median does not reveal the distribution, provider identities, prices, speeds, quality, entry, or competitive effects within any area.
Geographic evidence route
The route preserves nine FCC reporting periods, all 36 exact observations, the national and subnational-median distinction, and a reproducible handoff.
Declared analytical scope
Connection tier to geographic summary to FCC source custody
No combined geography score, legal market, causal mechanism, or competitive outcome is asserted.
Public action docket
ForFCC, FTC, DOJ, Congress, state attorneys general, broadband offices, and competition researchers
Release provider identities, connection shares, coverage counts, and common-control crosswalks at stable geographies under documented disclosure rules so researchers can inspect structure beyond a median.
Publish quantiles, tails, exclusions, revisions, and area counts alongside state, county, and census-tract medians so changes in the middle are not mistaken for changes everywhere.
Link stable geographic identifiers to prices, advertised and delivered speeds, latency, reliability, outages, adoption, quality, switching, and customer complaints.
Evidence still needed
Reader packet
ReusableCanonical citation
Antitrust Radar Research Team. (2026, July 24). Fixed Broadband Concentration Across Geographic Scales, 2020-2024: National HHI rose while median state, county, and census-tract concentration fell. Competition Research Briefs, AR-RB-2026-06 (Version 1.0). Antitrust Radar. https://antitrustradar.org/reports/fixed-broadband-geographic-concentration-2020-2024
Source basis
Federal Communications Commission Internet Access Services Figure 5, covering nine semiannual reporting periods from December 2020 through December 2024 for residential fixed connections meeting the 100/20 Mbps threshold. The packet preserves the national HHI and medians of separately calculated state, county, and census-tract HHIs as distinct geographic summaries.
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Source record
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Geographic summaries
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agency report
Source types
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Evidence asks
Evidence index
Published Jul 24, 2026 · sources through Jul 21, 2026 · version 1.0 · Current edition
Read / Briefing claim
Start with the four geographic paths, endpoint divergence, and legal-market boundary.
Nine FCC reporting periods reveal a scale-dependent concentration path that disappears when the national series is read alone.
The national HHI rose while all three subnational medians declined between the endpoints.
State, county, and tract medians all remained above 2,500 in December 2024.
The latest national value is below the preceding semiannual point, so endpoints do not describe every movement.
Geographic concentration paths
FCC Figure 5 / 100/20 Mbps tier
Endpoint divergence ledger
1,171to1,501
3,328to2,937
6,739to4,599
7,195to5,504
InterpretationThe divergence is a descriptive fact in the FCC panel. It does not by itself identify entry, exit, merger effects, technology change, reporting revisions, prices, quality, or welfare outcomes.
Exact observation ledger
| Reporting period | National HHI | State median | County median | Tract median |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 20202020-12 | 1,171 | 3,328 | 6,739 | 7,195 |
| Jun 20212021-06 | 1,179 | 3,085 | 6,549 | 7,102 |
| Dec 20212021-12 | 1,199 | 3,080 | 6,349 | 7,048 |
| Jun 20222022-06 | 1,322 | 3,247 | 5,702 | 6,312 |
| Dec 20222022-12 | 1,287 | 3,068 | 5,950 | 6,245 |
| Jun 20232023-06 | 1,270 | 2,955 | 5,662 | 5,987 |
| Dec 20232023-12 | 1,195 | 2,994 | 5,356 | 5,859 |
| Jun 20242024-06 | 1,605 | 3,054 | 5,267 | 5,840 |
| Dec 20242024-12 | 1,501 | 2,937 | 4,599 | 5,504 |
Public evidence agenda
Publish provider-level connection shares, provider identities, and concentration distributions by stable geography under documented privacy and disclosure rules.
Release quantiles, tails, coverage counts, exclusions, and revision histories so a median can be read alongside the full geographic distribution.
Link stable geographic identifiers to prices, advertised and delivered speeds, adoption, outages, latency, quality, and customer switching.
Publish entry, exit, buildout, subsidy, technology, ownership, and acquisition events that can explain observed structural changes without assigning cause from HHI alone.
Reproduction packet
The public packet returns exactly 36 rows across nine reporting periods and four geographic summaries.
Every period contains one unique national, state-median, county-median, and tract-median HHI row.
Every HHI stays on the zero-to-10,000 scale and retains the single FCC source ID.
National benchmark fields reconcile within each period without replacing the subnational median values.
December 2020-December 2024 changes reproduce +330 national, -391 state median, -2,140 county median, and -1,691 tract median HHI points.
The notebook reports national and geographic-median paths separately and carries the legal-market guardrail into the handoff.
Table of contents
Executive summary
From December 2020 to December 2024, the FCC-reported national HHI for residential fixed connections of at least 100 Mbps downstream and 20 Mbps upstream rose from 1,171 to 1,501, an increase of 330 points. Over the same endpoints, the median of separately calculated state HHIs fell from 3,328 to 2,937, the county median fell from 6,739 to 4,599, and the census-tract median fell from 7,195 to 5,504. All three subnational medians remained above 2,500 in December 2024. The semiannual path matters: national HHI reached 1,605 in June 2024 before ending at 1,501, so endpoint changes do not describe every movement. The complete evidence packet contains 36 rows across nine reporting periods and four geographic summaries. These values share an HHI scale but not one geographic meaning. The national value and the state, county, and tract medians are not interchangeable legal market definitions, and a median does not reveal the full distribution within or across areas. The release does not provide the provider identities and shares needed to inspect local structure directly or connect concentration to prices, speeds, quality, adoption, entry, buildout, subsidies, outages, switching, or competitive effects. The observed divergence is therefore a research finding and oversight signal, not a causal conclusion.
1,171 to 1,501
national fixed-broadband HHI
+330 points from December 2020 to December 2024; the semiannual peak was 1,605 in Jun 2024.
FCC national series6,739 to 4,599
median county HHI
-2,140 points across the same endpoints, while retaining a separately calculated geographic meaning.
FCC county median3.67x
tract median / national HHI
The December 2024 tract median was 5,504, or 4,003 HHI points above the national value.
Latest resolution ladder36
exact FCC observations
9 reporting periods each preserve one national value and three subnational medians.
Source-custodied ledgerResearch map
Source basis
Federal Communications Commission Internet Access Services Figure 5, covering nine semiannual reporting periods from December 2020 through December 2024 for residential fixed connections meeting the 100/20 Mbps threshold. The packet preserves the national HHI and medians of separately calculated state, county, and census-tract HHIs as distinct geographic summaries.
Bounded geographic evidence
The FCC series reports HHI for residential fixed connections of at least 100 Mbps downstream and 20 Mbps upstream. The national HHI and the state, county, and census-tract values are medians of separately calculated geographic HHIs. They are different summaries, not interchangeable legal market definitions. A median does not reveal the distribution, provider identities, prices, speeds, quality, entry, or competitive effects within any area.
Federal Communications Commission Internet Access Services Figure 5, covering nine semiannual reporting periods from December 2020 through December 2024 for residential fixed connections meeting the 100/20 Mbps threshold. The packet preserves the national HHI and medians of separately calculated state, county, and census-tract HHIs as distinct geographic summaries.
Source register
Source 01
Federal Communications Commission
Federal Communications Commission, Internet Access Services: Status as of December 31, 2024, Figure 5, published 2026.
FCC statistical report publishing national and median state county and census-tract HHI for residential fixed connections of at least 100 Mbps downstream and 20 Mbps upstream from December 2020 through December 2024.
Fixed-broadband oversight should preserve national and subnational concentration summaries as distinct signals, then connect them to provider-level local structure, distributional evidence, market events, and consumer outcomes before assigning cause or defining a legal market.
FCC, FTC, DOJ, Congress, state attorneys general, broadband offices, and competition researchers
Policy claims are framed as public-interest asks, not legal conclusions. Each ask should be read with the report’s source basis and limitations.