A new report from the Iowa Utilities Board says access to high-speed internet service has expanded dramatically in the last five years. Rob Hillesland is a spokesman for the Utilities Board. He says customers in nearly 93-percent of Iowa communities now have access to high-speed internet access using several different technologies.
Hillesland says the board began working with the Iowa Legislature five years ago to track the high-speed access. He says the numbers were a lot lower at the beginning.
Hillesland says there were 246 rural communities, or 28-percent that had access, while there were 111 nonrural or 42-percent that had high speed access.
Hillesland says efforts have branched out to smaller cities in the recent years. He says the original growth was in the urban areas, but in the last couple of reports the rural communities have seen dramatic growth. Hillesland says communities with less than 25-hundred people are considered rural. The full report is available on-line at www.state.ia.us/iub.