Indiana ranks average in broadband access

Some wanted restrictions on access to ensure it wouldn’t be hacked. Some wondered if people should pay to be able to use the organization’s broadband. 

Ultimately, the decision was to make it free to all – even those near the building, so that today even someone sitting inside the bus hut during the winter can access the Urban League’s broadband at no charge. 

“We have a code posted in a lot of places so people can use it,” said Jonathan Ray, CEO of the local Urban League. 

While new data suggest broadband services in homes throughout Indiana and the nation continue to rise, there are still gaps where some need to leave their home to get online using the speeds broadband has to offer. 

And they go to places like libraries or the Urban League, a civil rights organization in the heart of the south side. 

The Brookings Institution, a nonprofit organization devoted to independent research and policy solutions, compiled broadband adoption rates in metropolitan areas through the United States to give a snapshot of how connected the country has become. 

As of 2014, more than 75 percent of households in the country had a broadband Internet service, up 1.7 percentage points from the previous year, the Brookings report released this month said. 

The metropolitan area of San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara in California led the way with the highest percentage of households with broadband service at 88.2 percent. Laredo, Texas, ranked at the bottom – just 52 percent of households there had broadband Internet service. 

Fort Wayne ranked somewhere in the middle and slightly below the national average, with 73.2 percent of the city’s households having broadband. That’s up about 1.2 percentage points from the previous year, according to the Brookings Institute, and those offering the service throughout the state are seeing the increase.