Odessa, Texas

Everyone knows the broadband in the United States isn't very good.

Significant portions of the country aren't wired for high-speed Internet at all, and where it is available, it often isn't as fast as broadband in Asia and parts of Europe.

But while everyone knows that our broadband infrastructure is bad, no one knows exactly how bad it is.

See 10 counties that broadband forgot →

For years, Internet service providers have blocked efforts to publicize information about broadband availability, ostensibly, to protect themselves from their competitors.

The current Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has made improving broadband -- and the information we have about it -- its top priority. Last week, the agency released the most comprehensive report on broadband availability to date, including a list of all U.S. counties without access to broadband.

The list is based on information submitted by service providers in 2008. A county was considered unserved if less than 1% of households subscribed to service offering download speeds of at least 4 megabits-per-second and upload speeds of at least 1 megabit-per-second.

Obviously, that's a very low threshold, the data is two years old, and the methodology leaves plenty of room for error. Despite all that, this is far better than what existed until now.

So, who's still stuck with dial-up Internet?

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