About and methodology
An interactive view of the St. Louis market (St. Louis City, FIPS 510,
and St. Louis County, FIPS 189) that overlays the competitive
broadband footprint against demographic and socioeconomic data on a
common geographic grid: the census block group.
Internal subscriber data not yet included. This v1 is built on public
data only. Spectrum penetration, product mix, ARPU, and churn are
reserved columns and appear empty.
Sources
-
US Census American Community Survey (ACS) 2020-2024 5-year estimates,
block-group level (demographics and the broadband-subscription
proxy, table B28002).
-
FCC Broadband Data Collection, fixed availability by state
(Missouri), as of 2025-06-30, aggregated from 15-digit block to
12-digit block group. Satellite (geostationary and non-geostationary)
and the negligible "Other" category are excluded, so this layer
reflects terrestrial competition: cable, copper, fiber, and fixed
wireless. Satellite is available almost everywhere and would flatten
provider counts and inflate max speeds uniformly, hiding the local
competition the map is about.
- Census TIGER cartographic boundary geometry (block groups).
Important caveats
-
Availability, not subscription. FCC data reports
where service can be installed within 10 business days at standard
cost. It does not measure who subscribes or actual speeds delivered.
Advertised speeds are maxima, not measured.
-
Block-group aggregation. Every value is a rate or
count per block group. We never represent an individual household or
person. Aggregation hides within-block-group variation.
-
Indices are hypotheses. The opportunity,
competitive pressure, and underserved indices are weighted
combinations of normalized public proxies. Weights are visible and
tunable in the pipeline (pipeline/config.py). They are an argument,
not ground truth.
-
Margins of error. ACS estimates at block-group
scale can carry wide margins of error, especially for
small-population block groups.