Colorado Public Radio
Some areas of Colorado still don’t have high-speed internet, but new funding could change that
Since the late 1990s Colorado has tried to expand access to high-speed broadband. It’s been done in starts and stops, and sometimes not at all. Now Colorado is getting a huge amount of federal money, more than $826 million in Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) funding that was part of the 2021 infrastructure law to help expand broadband internet across the state and the country.
As Colorado Schools Reopen, Thousands Of Students Still Don’t Have Reliable Internet
Although 90 percent of Colorado city and suburban districts have high levels of broadband connectivity, only a quarter of the 112 rural districts have high levels of connectivity, and many have low or very low levels, according to an analysis by the Regional Educational Laboratory Central at Centennial-based Marzano Research. 94 percent of the 28,200 students within Mesa County Valley School district have broadband internet (speeds greater than 25 megabits per second).