Rank: 22
Code: Yellow
(See Blandin Foundation interactive map)
Cook County: stalled with pretty good coverage
Cook County ranks 26 (down 4) for broadband access out of 87 counties. Cook County has 90.36 percent coverage to broadband of 100 Mbps down and 20 up. They have 483 households without access to broadband at that speed. Estimates indicate that it will cost $4.5 million to get to ubiquitous broadband in the county.
| County | Residential Location Density | number of residential locations | ≥ 100 Mbps Download/20 Mbps Upload Speeds | unserved households | Cost to close gap |
| Cook | 3.1 | 5,012 | 90.36 | 483 | 4491900 |
Cook County has had more than 90 percent broadband coverage at speeds of 100/20 Mbps since we started tracking progress, thanks to a federal ARRA funding in 2010. There was a dip in coverage last year, likely due to increased granularity of mapping.
Cook County is so close but with little evidence of concerted effort to increase coverage, they retain their yellow ranking.
| 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | |
| 100/20 (2026 goal) | 90.36 | 90.95 | 94.5 | 94.5 | 94.5 | 94.5 | 94.46 |
| 25/3 (2022 goal) | 90.68 | 90.99 | 94.5 | 94.5 | 94.5 | 94.5 | 94.5 |
Grants:
- 2010: Cook County formed a partnership with Arrowhead Electric Cooperative, which applied for and was awarded over $16 million in federal stimulus grants and low interest loans to build a fiber-to-the-home broadband network throughout Cook County.
- In addition, Cook County awarded Arrowhead Cooperative a $4 million grant from the 1% sales tax fund.
Find more articles on broadband in Cook County. (http://tinyurl.com/hgbzlt7)
I am doing the annual look at broadband in each county – based on maps from the Office of Broadband Development and news gathered from the last year. I’m looking at progress toward the 2022 (25 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up) and 2026 (100 Mbps down and 20 Mbps up) and will code each:
- Red (yikes)
- Yellow (warning)
- Green (good shape)
The maps below on the left comes from the Office of Broadband Development interactive map, reflecting data updated on Oct 31, 2023. Red dots represent locations unserved with wireline broadband; the Orange dots represent underserved locations. The map on the right comes from the FCC National Broadband map showing access to wired and licensed fixed wireless access, the darker the color, the greater percentage of broadband coverage.
