DENVER—High-speed Internet service is available to 97.5 percent of homes in Colorado but access is more limited in many rural areas.
The state’s first-ever broadband-mapping project found that broadband access is below 80 percent in 15 mostly rural counties.
Custer County west of Pueblo, home to 4,000 people, has the lowest rate—56 percent. Some parts of the county don’t even have phone service.
The study was commissioned by the Legislature and paid for with $300,000 in donations. It defined download speeds of at least 768 kilobits as high-speed service.
Colorado has gotten $2.1 million in federal stimulus grants to do additional data collection, verification and mapping of broadband service and to identify obstacles to broadband adoption.
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Information from: The Denver Post,
