The Broadband Tribal Gap : An Empirical Evaluation

In this BULLETIN, I study broadband deployment over the years 2014-2020 in Tribal and non-Tribal census tracts using the Federal Communications Commission’s Form 477 data to quantify progress. This “Tribal Gap” is measured as the difference in average broadband availability between Tribal and non-Tribal census tracts. Unmatched and matched sample are used, and a sample of census tracts within 30 miles of a Tribal area are also analyzed with and without matching. In all cases, the gap between Tribal and non-Tribal census tracks has been getting closer to zero over time and by 2020 (the last year data are available) the Tribal Gap was near zero in all cases, especially when the deployment differences are conditioned on a few covariates. Indeed, the Tribal Gap is nearly fully explained by differences in demographic characteristics. These results are encouraging and suggests efforts to close the Tribal Gap are meeting with some success, though many factors that determine deployment largely are beyond regulatory remedy (e.g., population density)