The Broadband Serviceable Location Fabric (Fabric) is a dataset of all locations in the United States and Territories where fixed broadband internet access service is or could be installed. The Fabric allows broadband data filers and the FCC to work from a single, standardized list of locations for the Broadband Data Collection (BDC).
The Fabric is available to broadband service providers, governmental entities, and other entities, subject to certain procedures.
- How Broadband Service Providers Can Access the Fabric
- How Governmental Entities Can Access the Fabric
- How Other Entities Can Access the Fabric
Filers of fixed broadband availability data in BDC should use the current Fabric as the basis for developing their availability data. Filers who choose to submit a list of locations (rather than a polygon coverage area) must match their data on the locations they serve to the Location IDs in the Fabric. The FCC has contracted with CostQuest Associates to create the Fabric for the BDC.
Governmental entities, service providers, and other third parties may submit bulk challenges to the Fabric to help identify missing and incorrect locations. For more information about the Bulk Fabric Challenge process or which version of the fabric to use, please see:
What’s in the Fabric?
Fabric Version 1:
The Fabric is provided as a ZIP archive. Each archive consists of two files. One file (Active-FCC_Active_06302022_ver) contains all location records. The other file (Secondary-FCC_Secondary_06302022_ver) contains additional addresses corresponding to location_ids with multiple addresses, according to CostQuest’s data sources.
Both files are made available in Comma Separated Values (CSV) format. The Active file contains all active Fabric records within the counties covered by the Fabric license. The Secondary file contains the corresponding secondary addresses, if available, for each location in the Active file.
Data dictionaries for these files are available here:
Fabric Version 2:
Fabric Version 2 is provided as a ZIP archive with three files. First, the FCC_Active_BSL_12312022_ver1 CSV file contains all bsl_flag=TRUE location records for the counties covered by the Fabric license.
Second, the FCC_Active_NoBSL_12312022_ver1 CSV file contains all bsl_flag=FALSE location records for the counties covered by the Fabric license.
Third, the FCC_Secondary_12312022_ver1 CSV file provides secondary address information on locations. In cases where a location_id has multiple addresses associated with it, according to CostQuest's data sources, these additional addresses are listed in this file and could be helpful with address matching. The Secondary file will not necessarily include all address variations that exist for a particular location_id.
In each file, the data are for the entire county. To the extent that your service area differs from the county boundary, you may have excess records. This is intentional.
Data dictionaries for these files are available here:
Data Sources for the Fabric
The data sources used to identify the locations in the Fabric include a mix of aerial and , address databases, land and local tax records, and other sources the vendor identifies as helpful for determining, as completely as possible, the locations of structures throughout the United States where fixed broadband service can be installed.
For information about how the Fabric was generated, see these methods manuals:
