Why We Started Mapping the Internet Ourselves

Tyler Cooper is the Editor-in-Chief at BroadbandNow. BroadbandNow and its analytics arm, BroadbandNow Research, cover social, economic and political issues related to broadband technology — digital inclusion, municipal broadband, telecom legislation, emerging technologies, and the impact of broadband on everyday life.

Tyler leads BroadbandNow Research’s independent audits of federal broadband data, including the landmark study that manually verified more than 110,000 address-provider combinations and found that 42 million Americans lacked access to broadband — nearly double the FCC’s estimate at the time. That research was cited by the U.S. Government Accountability Office in its 2022 report to Congress calling for a national broadband strategy, and helped drive the national shift toward location-level broadband mapping.

His original reporting has also entered the academic record: Tyler’s investigation into Big Tech’s ownership of the internet backbone — which found Google owns or co-owns tens of thousands of miles of submarine cable — was cited in the Oxford journal International Affairs in research on “virtual sovereignty” and private infrastructural power.

Tyler’s work is internationally recognized; he has been published on sites like VentureBeat, TechRadar, Digital Trends, and The Next Web. He has also been featured in VICE and Fox News. He also works alongside PCMag’s Eric Griffith on the publication’s annual Best Internet Service Providers rankings.

Tyler is an active speaker at industry conferences and events, such as the National Digital Inclusion Alliance’s Net Inclusion 2020 conference, NPR’s “In Conversation,” Broadband Breakfast’s “Broadband Breakfast Live Online,” and the Broadband Measurement Summit in Washington, D.C., where he spoke in 2024. He has been writing about broadband issues like the digital divide, net neutrality, cybersecurity and internet access since 2015, and is the creator and host of The BroadbandNow Podcast, where he has interviewed policy leaders on BEAD implementation, telehealth, and broadband adoption.

John Busby is the Managing Director of BroadbandNow, where millions of consumers find and compare local internet options and independent research is published about the digital divide. John directs the work of BroadbandNow Research, including its landmark independent audits of FCC broadband availability data. Recognizing flaws in the FCC’s self-reported Form 477 methodology, John’s team manually checked more than 58,000 addresses against provider availability tools, over 110,000 individual address-provider verifications, and found that at least 42 million Americans do not have access to terrestrial broadband, nearly double the federal government’s estimate at the time. An earlier phase of the audit found the FCC underestimated the unserved population by 50%.

John is a vocal advocate for accurate, address-level broadband mapping and for modernizing the federal definition of broadband to 100 Mbps download / 25 Mbps upload, arguing that the legacy 25/3 standard fails the realities of telehealth, remote work and distance learning. He discussed these recommendations in depth in a Broadband Breakfast interview on FCC data errors.

Research directed by John has informed the national broadband policy conversation. It has been cited in written testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, in the Georgetown Law Poverty Journal, and by policy organizations including The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. John has been quoted in The New York Times on internet infrastructure during the COVID-19 quarantine, and BroadbandNow’s research has been covered by The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and VICE.

John is a frequent speaker at industry and policy events. He delivered a special address, “Crowdsourced Audit of FCC’s Broadband Availability Claims,” at the Broadband Measurement Summit in Washington, D.C., presenting alongside officials from the FCC and NTIA, and has joined the Gigabit Libraries Network’s “Libraries in Recovery” series to discuss broadband access. He was also the inaugural guest on The BroadbandNow Podcast, discussing local broadband initiatives and pandemic-era telecom policy.

Jeff Cohen is the Software Engineering Manager at BroadbandNow, where he leads the engineering team responsible for the provider plans and coverage databases at the core of the site. Every availability check, speed comparison and coverage map on BroadbandNow runs on data infrastructure Jeff builds and maintains, including the dataset that powers millions of address-level pages helping consumers see exactly which providers serve their home.

Twice a year, when the FCC releases its Broadband Data Collection filings, Jeff manages the processing of more than 900 million records covering over 2,000 internet providers across all 50 states and Washington, D.C. — validating, normalizing and reconciling the raw federal data into the standardized database that BroadbandNow’s editorial and research teams rely on. He also processes coverage data for roughly two dozen data partners each year, making him the go-to authority for data questions both inside and outside the organization.

That data foundation is what makes BroadbandNow’s independent research possible. Jeff builds and maintains the datasets behind the annual Best and Worst States for Internet Coverage, Prices and Speeds rankings and the ongoing FCC overreporting analysis — the audit series that revealed how far official availability figures diverge from reality. He also prepares the underlying data for PCMag’s annual Best ISPs rankings, produced in partnership with BroadbandNow.

Jeff’s datasets travel well beyond BroadbandNow. He has curated broadband data for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times and EducationSuperHighway, and his engineering work delivers provider availability data displayed on hundreds of millions of Redfin home listing pages and dozens of city-level internet guides on U.S. News. When journalists, policymakers or partners need reliable, address-level broadband data, Jeff is the person who builds it.

Jason Shevik is the Senior Industry Analyst at BroadbandNow, where he harnesses one of the industry’s largest broadband datasets to uncover and measure trends in internet competition, pricing, infrastructure and policy. Trained as a mathematician, Jason approaches broadband questions quantitatively, working in Python, R, and SQL and applying tools that range from established market-concentration measures like the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index to artificial intelligence and graph theory.

His research spans the industry’s biggest questions. Jason co-authored BroadbandNow’s county-level analysis of ISP market concentration, which examined all 3,143 U.S. counties using 87.6 million speed tests and found that over 96% lack meaningful competition for high-speed broadband. He authors the annual Best and Worst States for Broadband rankings, and co-authored the Broadband Pricing Changes: 2016 to 2022 study tracking how internet prices evolved over six years. In 2022, he led BroadbandNow’s analysis of internet access and quality in Ukraine following Russia’s invasion, measuring the war’s impact on connectivity city by city using live speed test data.

Jason’s work travels: the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society has featured his state-by-state broadband research, Verizon’s public policy team has formally cited his pricing study, and he has been quoted as an industry expert on the wartime deterioration of Ukraine’s internet infrastructure. Much of BroadbandNow’s research that reaches national newsrooms and policymakers is built on analysis Jason conducts behind the scenes.

His path to broadband research is unusual: John Busby, who directs BroadbandNow’s research, recruited Jason specifically for his background in collegiate policy debate, an activity built on rapid, rigorous research and argumentation across a huge range of topics. That training, combined with his mathematics degree, shapes how Jason works: follow the data, stress-test the argument, and publish only what survives.

Deanna Nguyen is the Senior Content Manager at BroadbandNow, where she is responsible for the editorial quality of everything readers see, from the site’s more than 33,000 city-level internet guides to its library of over 800 evergreen guides and resource pages. She sets BroadbandNow’s editorial standards and brand voice, hires and trains the site’s writers and editors to meet them, and works cross-functionally with design, development and strategy teams on how content pages are built and improved.

Her focus is well-researched, consumer-first coverage of the telecom industry, the digital divide, net neutrality, internet safety and the infrastructure changes that affect everyday internet users. Every piece published under BroadbandNow’s editorial standards passes through processes Deanna designed: research requirements, fact-checking expectations, and writing that starts from what the reader actually needs to know.

Deanna’s range as a writer extends well beyond broadband. She has been a senior writer for Crunchyroll since 2022 and previously wrote for Funimation, covering the streaming and anime industry, work that has been referenced by entertainment outlets including CBR. Earlier in her career she served as an editor at Locale Lifestyle Magazine and an editorial intern at Tokyo Journal, crafting features on travel, culture, food and notable public figures across print and digital. That breadth is exactly what her editorial role demands: the ability to make any subject, including something as technical as broadband infrastructure, clear, accurate, and worth reading.

Alejandro Medellin runs BroadbandNow’s YouTube channel end to end: he develops the video strategy, writes and ideates scripts, shoots and hosts the videos, edits them in DaVinci Resolve, and programs the library of router reviews, ISP guides, setup walkthroughs and troubleshooting explainers that millions of viewers rely on. Since taking over production in July 2024, he has produced more than 470 videos and grown the channel’s monthly viewership nearly tenfold, including a single Ethernet how-to that has been watched nearly half a million times.

His reviews are hands-on by design. When Alejandro covers a mesh Wi-Fi system, a Starlink kit or a router setting, he’s the one unboxing it, installing it and running it on camera, so viewers see exactly what the product does before they spend money on it.

Alejandro’s hardware testing extends beyond BroadbandNow. He is an active contributor at Tom’s Guide, where he reviews laptops, cameras and consumer tech — including reviews that have earned the publication’s Editor’s Choice and Recommended awards, and has covered consumer technology and filmmaking gear for Input (now Inverse), PremiumBeat, UploadVR and The Inventory. A working videographer as well as a reviewer, he shoots professionally on Panasonic Lumix cinema rigs, which is exactly why his equipment reviews carry weight: he evaluates gear the way someone who depends on it does.

Kate Fann is the Lead Internet Writer at BroadbandNow, where she has written or edited more than 300 articles covering the broadband industry: competitive how-to guides, informational explainers, and consumer advice on Wi-Fi, internet service providers, routers, and home connectivity. Her reviews are grounded in direct experience; when Kate covers a router or mesh system, she tests the device herself, then translates the results into guides that help readers decide before they buy. She also keeps BroadbandNow’s provider and city pages current, so the information consumers rely on reflects what providers actually offer today.

Kate brings more than a decade of professional writing experience to the broadband beat. As a contributing writer for U.S. News & World Report, she wrote research-based articles on moving and technology, interviewing expert sources for context. She has written evergreen commerce content for Real Simple, personal finance and productivity guides for PS, and long-form homeownership content for Angi that consistently ranks on the first page of search results. In 2025, Speedtest by Ookla brought her in to rewrite more than 20 of its city pages. She also spent six years covering celebrity family news for BabyNames.com, where she grew readership by more than 165 percent.

That breadth is the point. Kate specializes in taking topics that intimidate people, whether that’s choosing an internet plan, comparing mesh systems, or decoding provider fine print, and turning them into simple, actionable advice. Her work has earned recognition along the way, including a Gold Award from the AVA Digital Awards for a social media campaign.

Sherrylyn Hubilla is the Senior Data Researcher at BroadbandNow and one of the longest-serving members of the entire team, she joined in 2014, the year BroadbandNow was founded, and has spent the twelve years since making sure the provider information millions of consumers rely on is actually true. She leads the around-the-clock data collection team described in BroadbandNow’s public methodology: the researchers who manually audit all 2,800+ active providers every quarter, verifying standalone pricing and tracking changes in hidden fees, disclaimers, and fine print from national giants down to tiny regional co-ops.

Her team’s work is the human layer that public data can’t replace. When the FCC releases a new dataset, Sherrylyn’s team processes every provider that automation can’t match on its own. When providers submit coverage updates through BroadbandNow’s partner dashboard, her team reviews and verifies them before they go live. When consumers leave reviews or write in about their provider, her team triages and responds. And when BroadbandNow’s research team needed real-world availability verified for its landmark FCC overreporting studies, her team conducted the address-by-address checks, 109,000 hand-tested addresses in the most recent iteration.

Sherrylyn also built much of the machinery behind the team itself. In BroadbandNow’s early years she conducted functional testing on the first versions of the internal data dashboard, helped hire the researchers who became the data collection team, and documented the collection process end to end. Working with co-founder Nick Reese, she developed the standardized training program that new researchers still learn the system through today, which means every person who touches BroadbandNow’s provider data was trained on processes Sherrylyn wrote.