The state government expects to achieve universal broadband access in Virginia by 2024, Gov. Ralph Northam announced Tuesday, with more than $2 billion in public and private-sector funding going toward the effort.
Northam’s original pledge in 2018 was to provide broadband access to the whole state by 2028, but with federal COVID-19 relief funds received by the state in 2020 and 2021, he moved up the deadline to 2024 in July. At the time, the governor said he wanted to spend $700 million of $4.3 billion in funds from the American Rescue Plan on expanding internet access. On Tuesday, he said he expects more than a billion in matching funds from local and private sectors, in addition to the total $874 million appropriated by the state since 2018.
Virginia is currently the 15th most connected state in the country, but only 91.1% of Virginians have access to broadband internet with speeds of 100 mbps or faster, according to BroadbandNow, a trade site that publishes independent research on broadband and also provides data from the Federal Communications Commission.
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