Internet service mixed in area

Broadband access mostly high, but some rural areas, are notable exceptions

Imagine not having high-speed internet at home.

That may be hard to do for people who live in towns like Wilton, Niskayuna, Clifton Park, Guilderland and Bethlehem.

But in some towns in rural Washington and Warren counties, as well as far-flung parts of Albany County, the majority of households lack decent internet service, a new study by the Center for Economic Growth found.

The news isn’t all that bad.

In fact, the CEG study reveals that the Capital Region is actually one of the best places in the country for high-speed internet service equality. What does that mean?

CEG found that 73 percent of Capital Region homes had high-speed internet, either fiber connections or DSL.

That’s good enough to give the Capital Region the 20th “highest concentration” of high-speed internet, or broadband, subscribers in the country. The Seattle area is No. 1 with 90 percent of households having high-speed internet.

And the Capital Region also is extremely well off in terms of the gap between high-speed internet and slower internet services like dial-up and in some cases satellite internet service.

The CEG study found that the Capital Region only had an 11 percent

gap between total internet subscribers and high-speed internet subscribers, putting it at 11th place just behind San Jose, which is in Silicon Valley.

But there are still communities where it’s nearly impossible to get high-speed internet.

The worst in that category is the town of Hebron in Washington County, where only 7.9 percent of households has high-speed internet. It’s not much better in the town of Dresden where only a quarter of the population is paying for high-speed internet. Lexington in Greene County has only 13 percent with broadband.

In Rensselaerville, in Albany County, 34.7 percent of households have high-speed internet, the CEG study found.

In comparison, in the town of Wilton in Saratoga County, 85 percent of the population has high-speed internet connections.

The highest rate is in Clifton Park, also in Saratoga County, where 87 percent of households pay for high-speed internet service.

“Despite its strong rankings on the national level, the eight-county Capital Region (including Greene County) has stark differences in high-speed broadband household subscribership, especially among rural and urban counties,” CEG said.