High-Quality Internet Access Rapidly Spreading Through Connecticut

By Joe O’Leary

January 4 @ 5:00 am

While the Internet has been a part of daily life for decades now, the pandemic exposed how access to broadband connections was uneven at best. Working and learning from home revealed that high-speed internet access was “not a luxury, but a necessity, for all Americans,” as the Biden Administration said in 2023.

That’s something Connecticut leaders have kept in mind for years, and the results of the state’s biannual broadband report make that clear. From 2022 to 2024, state efforts have expanded broadband internet access to 92.2% of households in Connecticut, up from 86.7%.
That’s many thousands of households with better connectivity and stronger service.

This year’s results are the first to reflect the expansion initiative begun in 2022. From 2022 to 2024, homes without access to broadband internet dropped from 1.7% of the state to just 0.4%. Meanwhile, gigabit service access rose from nearly zero locations to about 850,000 locations.

A major effort to increase internet access standards to one gigabyte downloaded per second and 100 megabytes uploaded per second has also found success. In 2022, only 38% of the state could access that level of service; today, it’s 87%.

In a December press release, Gov. Ned Lamont said expanding access to broadband would remain a priority for Connecticut.

“We’ll keep working with communities, businesses, and local leaders to guarantee that everyone in Connecticut, no matter where they live, can benefit from the opportunities high-speed internet provides,” Lamont said. “As technology evolves, so must we.”

One of this year’s biggest advances in broadband service expansion was the announcement of $28 million in grants expanding service to locations that either do not have broadband service or are not receiving service meeting state standards. Administered through a new community grant program, those funds will serve 88 cities and towns in the state, getting service connections to hard-to-reach or underserved locations. Another $12 million in funds remain for similar work.

What’s to come in the next two years? Experts who compiled the report for the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection said the state’s next steps should include simplifying the process to deploy internet service to more locations, enhancing grant monitoring to maximize effective investments and developing risk mitigation strategies in the event of complications ranging from supply chain disruptions to technical issues during broadband deployment.

Though the pandemic’s worst impacts have faded in recent years, the push for enhanced service access serves to aid students by providing better service to bolster their educations, foster career growth, and improve overall quality of life everywhere from adoption of telemedicine to enhanced social connections.

“The internet is here to stay, and it’s a great state priority to make sure all of our residents can access the fast speeds and reliable service necessary to keep up in the modern age,” said Sen. Norm Needleman, Senate Chair of the legislature’s Energy and Technology Committee.