About the Tool

The Broadband County Assessment Tool (BCAT) is a data visualization tool meant to inform broadband deployment planning work in rural Tennessee Counties. Data for this tool came from a variety of sources such as The U.S. Census Bureau 2019 American Community Survey, The Federal Communications Commission, The United States Department of Agriculture, and The U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The tool allows users to examine current broadband infrastructure coverage in relation to the footprint of potential partners that own infrastructure, like electric utilities and phone companies. The tool also visualizes subsidies that have been awarded in the area via the USDA or FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) auction. It is recommended that users first start by looking at the phone companies and electric utilities, and then toggle on the FCC broadband coverage data to see the unserved areas. For more information see this document.


How to Use the Tool

  • Select the county you want to look at on the left hand side drop-down menu
  • Use the toggle switches to turn on and off layers
  • Hover your cursor over the name of the map layers to see what the layer is and why it was included
  • After turning on a layer, click on the polygon to see more more information about the layer in the right hand panel (e.g., the name of the electric utility or phone company in an area, the name of the winning bidder in the FCC’s auction)
  • View other metrics about the county by clicking on “Show/Hide Statistics Table” in the upper right corner.

Data Notice

The Broadband County Assessment Tool is provided “As Is.” Any research, data, or results of any research or data analysis, and any updates thereto, published or otherwise made accessible via this tool, is provided solely for non-commercial educational and research purposes, and you agree to make use of the foregoing resources only for educational or research purposes. Some jurisdictions provide for certain warranties, such as the implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. To the extent permitted by law, we exclude all warranties of any kind.