Kansas still behind in high-speed Internet access

Kansas continues to lag behind the rest of the nation in access to high-speed Internet service, according to state and federal reports.

Only about a quarter of Kansans have fixed Internet service running at speeds fast enough to effectively stream audio or video, according to the annual report of the Kansas Corporation Commission, recently presented to the utilities committees in the state Legislature. Nationally, about four out of 10 households have that capability. “Broadband is a foundation for economic growth, job creation, global competitiveness and a better way of life, but broadband in America is not yet where it needs to be,” the report said. “Similarly, advances in broadband deployment and speeds continue in Kansas, but we are not yet where we need to be.” The report calculated that about 63 percent of the state’s 1.2 million households have a fixed connection to an Internet service offering download speeds of at least 200 kilobyte per second. That 200 Kbps is about four times as fast as the old dial-up services and comparable to AT&T’s lowest-tier DSL broadband service. The phone company’s Internet offerings range from a “Basic” package with speeds from 200 to 768 kilobytes per second, up to a U-verse “turbo” package between 18 and 24 megabytes per second, or Mbps. The state report also showed that 292,000 households – or 24 percent – are connected to faster broadband service offering a download speed of 3 megabytes per second or faster.